PR 

55TI 
.A3F3 



Macmillan's English Classics 



A SERIES OF ENGLISH TEXTS EDITED FOR 

I'SE IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS, WITH 

CRITICAL INTRODUCTIONS, 

NOTES, ETC. 



16mo. Flexible 25c. each 



Macaulay's Essay on Addison 
Macaulay's Essay on Milton 
Tennyson's The Princess 
Eliot's Silas Marner 
Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner 
Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans 
Burke s Speech on Conciliation 
Pope's Homer's Iliad 
Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield 
Shakespeare's Macbeth 
Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley 
Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice 



OTHERS TO FOLLOW 



THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY 

BY 

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON 



y&zi $§ 




ALFRED LORD TENNYSON. 



[HE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY 

BY 

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON 



EDITED WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 

BY 
WILSON FARRAXD 

A.M. iPkin. etox) 

AS-OCIATE MASTER OF THE NEWARK ACADEMY. 
NEWARK, X.J. 



Nefo yovk 
THE MACMILLAX COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAX & CO., Ltd. 

1898 

All rights reserved 






20646 



Copyright, 189S, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 






1898 



Xorhioofc ^rrss 

J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 

Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



*-\ \ (o + 



<-\ OQl. 



INTRODUCTION 



In the study of any work of art, whether it be a 
painting, a symphony, a novel or a poem, the main 
thing, of course, is the work itself. It is possible 
to enjoy and to appreciate " The Princess " without 
any knowledge of its author, and without any ac- 
quaintance with his other poems. Still, acquaint- 
ance with a man adds greatly to our interest in his 
work; and if Tennyson becomes something more than 
a name to us, if we can form in our minds a picture 
of him as a man, we shall find that our enjoyment of 
what he has written will be distinctly increased. Still 
more, if we can gain some knowledge of his charac- 
teristics as a writer, can learn Avherein his skill as a 
poet consisted, so that we may discern these character- 
istics as we read, we shall find a higher pleasure than 
if we follow only the details of the story. And if we 
grasp the fact that through all of Tennyson's writing 
there runs a serious purpose, that he always had some 
higher end than simply to give pleasure, and that, 
while "The Princess" is to be read as a beautiful 



vi INTRODUCTION 

poem and an interesting story rather than as a moral 
lesson, it none the less breathes a deeper purpose, and 
that beneath the beanty of language and verse is a 
great underlying truth, — if we grasp this, we shall 
find that our enjoyment is increased rather than les- 
sened, and that we have gained a clearer appreciation 
of the truth that poetry is something more than a mere 
pastime, and that a poem is not simply the amuse- 
ment of an idle hour. 

For these reasons, therefore, it is desirable, in con- 
nection with our reading of " The Princess," to gain 
some knowledge of the facts of its author's life and of 
his personality ; to learn something of his work and 
of his rank as a poet, to ascertain the reasons why 
he is thought worthy to hold that rank ; to discover 
the purpose that he had in view when he wrote this 
poem, and to search for the secret of its charm and 
power. 

I. TENNYSON THE MAN 

Alfred Tennyson was born on the 6th of August, 
1809, in the rectory of the little village of Somersby, 
in Lincolnshire, England. His father was a clergyman 
of more than usual culture and education, and his 
mother was a woman of rare sweetness of character. 
Receiving, as he did, nearly all of his early education 



TENNYSON THE MAX . vii 

at home, he owed much to his fortunate parentage. 
In later years he paid more than one tribute to his 
mother, and it is understood that the beautiful lines 
in the last part of " The Princess ". (vii., 298-312) were 
written with her in mind. Alfred was one of twelve 
children, and it is said that owing to his shyness he 
was not the most attractive of the twelve. 

He attended school for a year or two in the neigh- 
boring village of Louth, but except for that absence 
his entire boyhood was spent at home. There can 
be little question that this quiet, retired life in a 
scholarly household, amid the beautiful Lincolnshire 
scenery, did much to develop in him the fondness for 
books and the love of nature that were so character- 
istic of him in later life. 

His fondness for poetry and his ability to write 
verse were shown when he was very young. At the 
age of ten or eleven he conceived a great admiration 
for Pope's translation of the Iliad and wrote hun- 
dreds of lines in the " regular Popeian metre." He 
said himself that he was even able to improvise them. 
At twelve Scott had become his model, and he com- 
posed an epic of six thousand lines in the manner of 
Sir Walter. A year or two later he had completed a 
drama in blank verse. 

In 1827, when he was eighteen, he and his older 
brother Charles published the little volume, that has 



viii • INTRODUCTION 

since become famous, Poems by Two Brothers. While 
the poems are not without merit, the reputation of the 
book is due not to its own excellence, but to the fact 
that it contains the first published work of one who 
was afterward to become the greatest poet of his time. 

In 1828, the two brothers, Charles and Alfred, en- 
tered Trinity College, Cambridge. Both were retiring 
by nature, and their life in the great university was 
almost as quiet and uneventful as it had been in the 
little country village. Alfred did not take what could 
be called a prominent position at Cambridge, but his 
ability and his attractiveness as a man were recog- 
nized. His friends were not numerous, but they were 
of the best men in the university, and they were bound 
to him by the strongest ties. Among the most notable 
of these friends were Arthur Henry Hallam, Richard 
Monckton Milnes (afterward Lord Houghton), Richard 
Chenevix Trench (afterward Archbishop of Dublin), 
James Spedding, F. D. Maurice, Henry Alford, and 
Charles Merivale — all men whose names still live by 
reason of their own achievements. Thackeray was 
also in Cambridge at the same time with Tennyson, 
but they do not appear to have been thrown together. 

All this time he was busy with his poetry. He fre- 
quently read his productions to the members of the 
little club or society known as "The Apostles," the 
understanding always being that no criticisms or 



TEXXYSOX THE MAN ix 

comments were to be made. In 1829 he won the 
" Chancellor's Prize " for the best poem on the rather 
unpromising subject, " Timbuctoo." It is not a remark- 
able work, but it is possible to discover in it traces of 
the power that was later developed. In 1830, while 
he was still a student, appeared his first real volume, 
Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. This little book attracted im- 
mediate attention, and some of the poems — " Mari- 
ana," " Kecollections of the Arabian Nights," and 
others — are still cherished as among his better work. 
In 1831, owing to his father's death, he left Cambridge 
without taking a degree, and determined to devote his 
life to the pursuit of poetry. 

In 1833 occurred the great sorrow of the poet's life, 
the death of Arthur Henry Hallam. He was Tenny- 
son's closest friend, and a man of whom he said that 
he was " as near perfection as mortal man could be." 
It is fair to say that the loss of his friend Hallam 
affected Tennyson more profoundly than any other 
event in his whole life. 

After Hallam's death Tennyson settled in London 
and devoted himself to his writing. From that time 
the story of his life is simply a record of growth — of 
growth in poetic power, and in the recognition of that 
power by the world. For nearly ten years he pub- 
lished little, although he was writing steadily. In 
1842 he atoned for his long silence by giving to the 



X INTRODUCTION 

world two volumes of Poems. Among the new poems 
in these volumes were "The Talking Oak," "Locksley 
Hall," "Ulysses," and "Break, break, break." In 
1845, Sir Robert Peel placed his name on the Civil 
List for a pension of £200 a year. Up to this time 
Tennyson had been seriously hampered by the lack of 
money, but now, thanks to the pension and the increas- 
ing income from his writings, his pecuniary troubles 
were practically ended. 

In 1847, " The Princess " appeared. 1850 was the 
most notable year of the poet's life, for in that year, 
at the age of forty, almost exactly midway between 
his birth and death, he was married, published " In 
Memoriam," and was made Poet Laureate of England. 
It is worthy of note that the marriage of Alfred Tenny- 
son and Emily Sellwood was the culmination of an en- 
gagement that had virtually lasted for thirteen years. 
They had become engaged during the time of his early 
struggles in London, but as poetry was not proving a 
lucrative occupation, and as there was no. visible pros- 
pect of his being able properly to provide for a wife, 
all communication between the two was forbidden. 
For ten years the prohibition was in force, but at last 
success was achieved and the poet was able honorably 
to renew his suit. 

In 1853 Tennyson moved to Farringford in the Isle 
of Wight. It is with this place that his name is 



TENNYSON THE MAX XI 

especially associated, although he later owned an- 
other, Aldworth, in Surrey, and divided his time be- 
tween the two. At intervals during the later years of 
his life appeared " Maud," " Idylls of the King," his 
various dramas, and a number of shorter poems. In 
1865 he refused a baronetcy, but in 1883, after consid- 
erable hesitation, he accepted the offer of a peerage, 
and early in the following year was made Baron of 
Aldworth and Farringford. 

He died at Aldworth on the 6th of October, 1892, 
at the age of eighty -three, after a life singularly quiet 
and apart from the bustle of the world, but a life 
peculiarly complete and well-rounded. He was buried 
in Westminster Abbey. 

Such is the bare record of the facts of Tennyson's 
life. We are not so much concerned with these facts, 
however, as we are with the man himself, with his 
personality. What we wish to know is not when he 
was born and died, nor where he lived, but what sort 
of man he was ; we wish to see him, as nearly as may 
be, as he was in life ; we wish to become acquainted 
with him, to learn the traits and characteristics that 
are reflected in his works and that will throw light 
upon them. Before speaking of some of these traits, 
however, there are two points clearly brought out even 
in such a brief summary of his life as has been given 
here. 



xii INTRODUCTION 

The first of these points is the constancy of his 
devotion to one end. Poetry was the end and aim of 
his life. He began to write it when he was but eight 
years old; it was the absorbing pastime of his youth, 
the occupation of his manhood, and the solace of his 
old age. We find no record of any question as to 
what his calling in life should be; it seems to have 
been taken for granted, by him and by his friends, 
that he was foreordained to be a poet. When the 
burden of self-support was laid upon him, and even 
when his engagement roused in him the desire for 
pecuniary independence, there seems to have been no 
thought of attaining it in any other way than by in- 
creased devotion to his art. He was not a narrow 
man. His interests in life were many, but all of these 
interests were subordinated to one end. He studied 
science, and history, and philosophy, and politics, but 
only that he might thereby make his poetry richer 
and deeper and truer. The story of his life is the 
story of an almost religious devotion to one end, of a 
rarely equalled constancy of purpose. 

Besides showing this constancy of purpose the story 
of Tennyson's life clearly reveals the fact that the ful- 
ness of his poetic power was attained only after long 
growth and development. This is not to say that he 
did not possess innate poetic genius. The boy who 
at ten or eleven could write such verses as he did was 



TENNYSON THE MAN Xlil 

no ordinary child ; the college student who could write 
the " Recollections of the Arabian Nights " was no 
commonplace undergraduate ; and no man who did 
not have born in him genius of the highest order could 
ever fit himself by any course of training to write 
" In Memoriam " or the"" Idylls of the King." That 
Tennyson possessed genius of a high order is evident 
from a study of his early works, but a study of his 
whole work makes it equally evident that this genius 
attained its full fruition only as the result of slow 
development. There is to be found in his work a 
steady increase of technical skill. Facility in verse 
making he had as a boy, but skill in the use of his 
tools, that is, in the handling of words and metre, grew 
by practice and toil. Still more marked is the growth 
in the real, underlying power of his poetry. Some cf 
his earlier poems are among his most charming and 
delightful, but it is in the work of his manhood that 
we must look for that which shall fully measure the 
height and depth of his power. 

Recognition of this constancy of purpose, and of 
this steady growth and development of power, is fun- 
damental to any true knowledge of Tennyson. There 
are also, however, certain strongly marked traits or 
characteristics, acquaintance with which makes the 
man stand out more clearly before our eyes, and thus 
makes his poetry more easily intelligible. 



• xi v IN TR <)D I 'C ■ TIO N 

The first of these traits to impress one is his love of 
seclusion, and his dislike of anything like a formal 
social function. This does not mean that he disliked 
people, or that there was anything disagreeable or 
surly in his nature. Exactly the opposite was true. 
L He disliked a crowd and he hated the empty for- 
malities of society, but he enjoyed nothing more than 
the companionship of his friends. He liked nothing 
better than free, unrestrained intercourse with con- 
genial companions, and those who were admitted to his 
intimacy speak with enthusiasm of the charm of his 
manner and the fascination of his talk. But he had 
no time to waste on those who sought him out of mere 
curiosity, and no enjoyment of a crowd. 

As has been said, this aversion to society was not 
due to anything disagreeable in his nature ; it was 
due mainly to two causes. The first of these was his 
shyness, for he was extremely, almost painfully, shy. 
This was strongly marked in his boyhood, and he 
never outgrew it. Of course, as he saw more of people 
and of the world, and as his own consciousness of 
power grew, his timidity was lessened, but it never 
fully passed away. 

The second reason for his love of seclusion was 
unquestionably the fact that he possessed indepen- 
dent resources of enjoyment and of work. There are 
some natures that need the stimulus and spur of 



TEXXYSOX THE MAX XV 

association with others to rouse them to effort or to 
give zest to their pleasure. This was not the case 
Avith Tennyson. His own high purpose was a suffi- 
cient incentive to work ; his greatest sources of pleas- 
ure were books and nature, and he needed no com- 
panionship to enable him to' enjoy these. He was 
fond of his friends and he liked to share his pleas- 
ures with them, but he was a man who preferred his 
own society to that of indifferent companions. 

Now this shyness produced, as it frequently does, a 
certain sort of mannerism, and this independence of 
mind brought about not infrequent fits of abstraction 
and absent-mindedness, so that it is not strange that 
many who met him casually thought him brusque and 
even rude in manner. To this was added a blunt hon- 
esty that often scorned the ordinary polite convention- 
alities. His reply to the Duchess of Argyll, when she 
asked if he could not be persuaded to attend a literary 
breakfast at her house, " I should hate it, Duchess," 
was perfectly understood by her; but to one who did 
not know him it must have seemed unpardonably rude. 
But this apparent brusqueness was after all only on 
the surface, and when one had broken down the barrier 
of his reserve and had fairly been admitted to his in- 
timacy, he was found to be the most delightful of com- 
panions, the truest of friends. 

The love of seclusion was probably the first trait 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

that one would notice in Tennyson, but it would not 
be possible to remain long in his society without being 
impressed also by his strong love of nature. Probably 
the sea appealed to him more than any other natural 
object, and has affected more strongly his poetry, but 
his enjoyment of natural beauty and his love of it 
were most catholic. Nor was it simply an admiration 
for the beautiful in nature ; it was an intense enjoy- 
ment that permeated his whole being and filled his 
whole soul. His knowledge of natural objects was 
remarkable. Bayard Taylor, who visited him at Far- 
ringford and walked with him, was "struck with the 
variety of his knowledge. Not a little flower on the 
downs, which the sheep had spared, escaped his notice, 
and the geology of the coast, both terrestrial and sub- 
marine, was perfectly familiar to him. I thought of 
a remark I once heard from the lips of a distinguished 
English author (Thackeray) that ' Tennyson was the 
wisest man he knew,' and could well believe that he 
was sincere in making it." This keenness of observa- 
tion, this breadth of knowledge, and this intense en- 
joyment of nature are clearly reflected in his poetry. 

His love for nature was almost, if not quite, equalled 
by his fondness for books and reading. That which 
would most impress one, however, was not so much 
his fondness for study and reading as the extent and 
variety of his knowledge. He was not merely a reader, 



TENNYSON THE MAN xvii 

but a systematic student, and the range of his studies 
was a broad one. Literature naturally held first place, 
and he was well versed in the best of all times and all 
countries. Philosophy appealed to him strongly, he 
showed a deep interest in politics, and he followed 
closely the best scientific thought of the day. The 
following schedule of a week's work drawn up by the 
poet in 1834, and printed in Hallam Tennyson's Life 
of his father, is very suggestive in this connection : — 

Monday: History, German. 
Tuesday: Chemistry, German. 
Wednesday: Botany, German. 
Thursday: Electricity, German. 
Friday : Animal Physiology, German. 
Saturday : Mechanics. 
Sunday : Theology. 
Next iveek : Italian in the afternoon. 
Third iveek : Greek. Evenings : Poetry. 

It is easy to believe that his reputation for broad 
learning rested on a secure foundation. 

Besides his love of seclusion, his fondness for nature, 
and his broad learning, there was a fourth trait that 
could not fail to impress any one who knew him. That 
was his belief in himself. He took himself and his 
work seriously. Poetry was to him no pastime ; it 
was the most important thing in life. He regarded 



XX IXTRODUCTIOX 

end in life, regarding his work as of far more impor- 
tance than himself, and knowing perfectly that he 
had succeeded in that work. Now when a man has 
succeeded in a great undertaking by his own exer- 
tions, we can forgive him, even though we smile, if he 
sometimes fails to conceal the consciousness of his 
success. 

Such was the man. A striking figure, as Carlyle 
described him, with "a great shock of rough, dusky 
dark hair; bright, Laughing, hazel eyes; massive aqui- 
line face, most massive yet most delicate;" living a 
life apart from the bustle of the world, with a few 
tried friends, his books, nature and his own thoughts, 
he realized most closely, in appearance and in life, our 
ideal of a poet. 

II. TENNYSON'S WORK AND ART 

One of the first points to be noticed in regard to 
Tennyson's work is its unevenness. Considerable 
stress should be laid upon this, for a realization of 
it is important in forming an estimate of the poet. 
Many persons happen upon some of his weaker poems 
and are repelled. They find comparatively slight evi- 
dence of power and feel that he cannot be a great poet. 
They even find positive defects that appear to over- 
balance whatever merits they may discover. Now this 



TENNYSON S WORK AND ART xxi 

method of judgment when applied to poetry is radi- 
cally wrong. A poet is to be judged by his most suc- 
cessful work, not by that which falls short of his 
normal standard. He may have written a great deal 
that is arrant nonsense, or worse, but if he has, in 
addition, done some work that is really fine, we judge 
him by that and ignore the other. This is precisely 
the case with Tennyson. The slow and steady devel- 
opment of his poetical power has already been spoken 
of. It would be manifestly unfair to base an estimate 
of the work of the Laureate on the ambitious drama 
that he wrote at fourteen ; it is equally unfair to judge 
him by the experiments of his young manhood or by 
the efforts of his less inspired hours in later life. 

It is important, then, to note the fact that Tenny- 
son's work was uneven and that a not inconsiderable 
portion of it may be called distinctly unsuccessful. 
Some of his early poems are weak technically — at 
least, as compared with the consummate art of his 
later work; more are labored and artificial, without 
real life and inspiration, and some of his later verse is 
decidedly poor. Some even of his more famous poems 
fall short when judged by the strictest standards. 
This weaker work is to be ignored in forming an esti- 
mate, and our judgment of the poet should be based 
only on that which may fairly be regarded as his best 
work. 



xxi l INTRODUCTION 

There are certain poems in regard to which the 
opinions of critics are divided — for example, "Maud" 
and "The Princess." Leaving these out of considera- 
tion, it is probably fair to say that Tennyson's best work 
is comprised in three groups of poems. The first of 
these groups includes some of his shorter poems — the 
" Recollections of the Arabian Nights " with its picture 

of 

the golden prime 

Of good Haroun Alraschid; 

the ever charming " Miller's Daughter " ; " The Lotos- 
Eaters," breathing the very spirit of the land 

In which it seemed always afternoon ; 

the stirring ballad of "The Revenge"; the unequalled 
and inimitable "Charge of the Light Brigade"; the 
noble " Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington " ; 
and that other most characteristic poem, "Locksley 
Hall," to which more than to any other single poem, it 
has been said, Tennyson owes his hold on the hearts and 
minds of men in this nineteenth century. It would easily 
be possible to enlarge this list, but it is not necessary, ex- 
cept to mention his songs. Tennyson was preeminently 
successful in this line, and some of his songs may fairly 
be ranked as the finest in our language since the days 
of Shakespeare. Some of these songs were published 
separately, but more of them, perhaps, were inserted 



TENNYSON'S WORK AND ART xxiii 

in his longer poems, notably "The Princess," "Maud," 
and the " Idylls of the King." When we think of 
such songs as " Break, break, break," " Crossing the 
Bar," that exquisitely beautiful cradle-song, 

Sweet and low, sweet and low, 
Wind of the western sea, 

and, finest of all, the " Bugle Song," 

The splendor falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits old in story, 

— when we think of these, we have a firm basis on 
which to form an estimate of Tennyson's power. 
These songs will live. If Tennyson had written 
nothing more than a half dozpn of the songs, and 
the poems that have been named above, his fame 
would be secure. 

Some of his short poems and songs, then, may be 
said to make up the first group of Tennyson's success- 
ful poems. The second includes those one hundred 
and thirty-one short poems written in memory of 
Arthur Henry Hallam, and known as " In Memoriam." 
Arthur Hallam was Tennyson's closest friend, who 
called out his deepest admiration and love, and whose 
death was the great sorrow of the poet's life. " In 
Memoriam " is the record of his grief over the loss of 
his friend. Each of the short poems embodies a pass- 



xxiv INTRODUCTION 

ing mood or phase of that grief, and together they 
form a connected record of his most sacred thoughts 
and feelings extending over a period of seventeen 
years. The work as a whole is overweighted. There 
is too much of it for the subject. It is emphatically 
not a work to be read at a single sitting, but two or 
three poems at a time as the mood happens to strike 
one. When read thus it cannot fail to make a pro- 
found impression. In it Tennyson has taken that 
well-known metre, so familiar to us in our hymns, and 
carried it to the highesl point of perfection that has 
yet been attained in our literature; he has displayed 
a, marvellous power of expressing profound thought 
in exquisitely perfect language, and he has put into 
words some of the deepest feelings and emotions that 
stir the hearts and minds of men of this time. It is 
this power of expressing great truths in perfect lan- 
guage that lias filled our modern literature with quota- 
tions from "In Memoriam"; it is because of this that 
men have turned and art 1 turning to it to find the 
voicing of those emotions that they feel and know, 
but cannot put into words; and it is this that has 
made it what it has so truly been called, "the most 
influential poem of the nineteenth century." 

Greatest of all his works, however, are the " Idylls 
of the King." In these Tennyson has taken the 
legends of King Arthur as they are told by old 



TENNYSON S WORK AND ART XXV 

Geoffrey of Monmouth and Sir Thomas Malory, lias 
clothed them with all the charm of chivalry, with all 
the fascination of romance, and with a glamour that 
is purely Tennysonian, has adorned them with the 
utmost grace of language and the highest splendor of 
verse and description, and has woven the whole into 
a completed epic that stands as the greatest narrative 
poem in our language since the time of Milton. The 
style is a rare union of strength and delicacy ; at times 
we are borne along with a power and majesty that are 
irresistible, and again the verse flows with exquisite 
tenderness ; nowhere is his descriptive power more 
marked; and the stories are told with entrancing skill. 
But the real secret of the greatness of the " Idylls " 
lies deeper than this : it lies in the fact that Tennyson 
has done something more than tell charming stories 
with delightful skill. King Arthur is a noble soul, 
striving to live blamelessly in the world and to uplift 
those about him. Into his court comes a sin, — the 
guilty love of Launcelot and Guinevere, — and that sin, 
spreading and involving others, finally brings to ruin 
the whole fabric of the Round Table that had been 
built up with such infinite pains. The "Idylls" are 
not an allegory, and they were not written for the 
purpose of preaching a sermon or of teaching a lesson. 
But they contain a distinct allegorical element, and 
it is impossible to read them carefully without feeling 



XXVI INTRODUCTION 

that beneath the surface is a great underlying truth. 
The " Idylls " charm us if we seek only pleasure in 
the reading, but when we grasp this deeper meaning, 
— the struggle of a brave soul to live purely and to 
uplift humanity, the conflict of man with sin, the ter- 
rible ruin wrought by sin, in fact, the great problem 
of civilization, — when we grasp this deeper meaning, 
they stand out as one of the great poems of the world. 

Tennyson has written much besides these that is 
tint', some tilings, perhaps, that may fairly be called 
great, but it is upon these three groups — some of his 
shorter poems and songs, " In Memoriam," and the 
" Idylls of the King " — that any sound estimate of his 
power must be based. The question now naturally 
arises, what is it in these works that constitutes their 
power? What are the elements of strength that we 
shall discover when we come to analyze them ? It 
is not necessary for us to enter into an exhaustive 
analysis of Tennyson's art. but if we examine these 
works closely, we shall discover three elements of 
power, and it is on these that his claim to greatnos 
chiefly rests. 

The first element of strength that one notices is his 
matchless literary workmanship. The word •• match- 
is used advisedly, for as a literary artist, as a 
skilful handler of the tools of his trade, Tennyson 
is preeminent and almost without a rival. His skill is 



TEXXYSfjX S WORK AND ART xxvii 

particularly noticeable in two respects — his command 
of words and of metre. 

His diction is remarkable. The number of words at 
his command is astounding, and seems almost with- 
out limit. But it is not so much the extent of his 
vocabulary that impresses us as his skill in using the 
words at his command, the way in which he chooses 
just the right word to express the exact meaning in- 
tended, and the judgment with which he selects the 
kind of word that will enhance the effect that he 
desires to produce. We need not go outside of " The 
Princess " for proof of this power. Take some of 
the songs between the parts ; for example. " Sweet 
and low" and "Ask me no more.*' Notice the abso- 
lute simplicity of the language — in the latter only 
six of the one hundred and twenty-five words contain 
more than one syllable — and what an effect of te n- 
derness in the one and of solemnity in the other is 
produced by the use of these short, simple, familiar 
words. Xow compare with these such a line as that 
famous one, 

Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere ; 

or such a passage as the following : — 

A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, 
With scraps of thundrous epic lilted out 
By Yiolet-hooded Doctors, eletiies 



xxvm INTRODUCTION 

And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long 
That on the stretched forefinger of all Time 
Sparkle for ever ; 

or those three remarkable lines. 

Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 
The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
And murmuring of innumerable bees ; 

or those others, with their Miltonic roll, 

While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 
Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 
A long melodious thunder to the sound 
Of solemn psalms and silver litanies. 

Contrast these, and you have done enough to prove 
Tennyson's power of choosing the right kind of word 
to produce a desired effect. 

Another evidence of Tennyson's command of words 
is his ability to express a great truth in a concise, 
epigrammatic form that has almost the form of a 
proverb. Many of these have passed into our stock 
of familiar quotations : — 

He makes no friend who never made a foe. 

A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas. 

And God fulfils himself in many ways 

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 



TENNYSON'S WORK AND ART xxix 

'Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all. 

But it is unnecessary to quote more. One has 
simply to open a volume of Tennyson at random and 
to read a page with this thought in mind to be con- 
vinced of his marvellous command of words. 
. His metrical skill is no less marked. This, how- 
ever, is too technical a subject to be proved by off- 
hand citations, or to be discussed here with any degree 
of fulness. Still it is easy, without entering into 
technicalities, to convince oneself of his skill in hand- 
ling metre. Turn to the "Idylls of the King" and 
"In Memoriam." Notice in the one how splendidly 
he has handled the blank v.erse, and in the other to 
what a point of perfection he has carried the familiar 
hymnal metre. Then turn to almost any of the shorter 
poems or songs in more unusual metres. Read them 
aloud, noting the swing of the verse and the lilt of 
the lines. You have done enough to prove to the 
ordinary mind Teniryson's command of metre, and 
for the rest one may well be content to accept the 
testimony of those whose technical training best fits 
them to judge. Tennyson's perfection of workman- 
ship, then, as shown especially in his command of 
words and of metre is the first element of his strength ; 
and it is impossible to study this technical excellence 
and to notice how it is always subordinated to the 



xxx INTRODUCTION 

higher ends of poetry, without being impressed by 
the devotion that counted no pains too great, no labor 
too toilsome that would make more perfect the expres- 
sion of the message that he felt called to deliver. 

And the second element of strength is his splendid 
descriptive power. This is exactly what we should 
expect to find in a man with such an intense love of 
nature, possessing such a power of keen observation, 
and en (lowed with such a remarkable faculty of ex- 
pression. The range of this power seems to be almost 
unlimited. It makes little difference whether he is 
describing the sea in storm or calm ; the peaceful 
beauty of a country landscape, or the bare sweep of a 
desolate moor; whether he is describing the lowly 
cottage of a humble laborer, or the " lordly pleasure- 
house " he built his soul, 

Wherein at case for aye to dwell ; 

whether he is picturing the scene before his eyes, or 
that country of the " Idylls " that existed only in his 
imagination — whatever the subject, each is drawn 
with the same certainty of touch, the same clearness 
of outline. And it is just so with his descriptions of 
men and events ; each stands out with the same dis- 
tinctness and the same vivid sense of reality. 

He seldom goes minutely into details in his descrip- 
tions, but he has the faculty of selecting just those 



TENNYSON S WORK AND ART XX XI 

details that are most important and that will make 
the object or the place stand out before our eyes. He 
has great power of suggesting a scene, and with very 
few words is able to construct for us an elaborate 
picture. 

This power of description was constantly and freely 
used. Indeed, it may be said that Tennyson's poetry 
is eminently pictorial. He displays his suggestive 
power in the striking and vivid figures that are so 
abundant in his verse, and his poems are crowded 
with rich and varied pictures. One can hardly read 
a page at random without being struck by the wealth 
of description. "The Princess" is a capital illustra- 
tion of the truth of this, and it also contains some of 
his finest descriptions. One point, however, should be 
noticed and emphasized. Tennyson seldom, if ever, 
introduces a description for its own sake. There is 
always a deeper purpose, and the picture is used to 
illustrate some thought that he is trying to impress, 
or, as a background, to intensify some effect that he 
wishes to produce. " The Princess " is crowded with 
examples of this, and it is seen clearly in "Locksley 
Hall,'' where the landscape mirrors so perfectly the 
mood of the hero of the poem. 

His technical skill and his descriptive power, then, 
are the two characteristics that first impress one in 
a study of Tennyson's verse. They, however, are not 



xxxii INTRODUCTION 

sufficient by themselves. A man may possess both 
qualities in high degree and yet fall far short of writ- 
ing true poetry. The ability to write verse is easily 
acquired; any one of fair capacity can attain a 
moderate degree of skill with comparatively little 
effort, and when once attained it is easy to grind out 
machine-made verse by the yard. But it is not poetry. 
Poetry is something deeper and more worthy than 
that. The poet is one who, with clearer vision and 
truer insight than are -ranted to ordinary mortals, 
looks out nielli the world about him, up to God, and 
dow n into liis own soul, reads there the hidden mean- 
ings, and proclaims them to the world in poetic form. 
It is not enough that he has a high purpose, or even 
that he utters great truths. He may teach noble 
lessons, but if his work is not clothed in worthy 
artistic form, he is no true poet. So, too, if the verse 
embodies the very perfection of art, if it charms us 
with its grace, or dazzles us with its splendor, but 
carries no deeper message to touch our hearts, kindle 
our imaginations, or rouse us to action, it is empty and 
vain. The great poet is he who utters great truths 
and noble thoughts in worthy artistic form. 

There are, then, two elements to be considered in 
the work of every poet — his message and his art. We 
have seen the perfection of Tennyson's art, but the 
real secret of his power lies deeper than that ; it is to 



TEXXVSOX'S WORK AND ART XXXlll 

be found, not in the excellence of his verse, nor in the 
splendor of his descriptions, but in the truth and no- 
bility of his message. It was a twofold message — 
a message of progress and a message of faith. 

Tennyson was a believer in progress. He was no 
pessimist. He saw the discouragements and the ob- 
stacles, the countless ills and evils that hem men in 
on every side. They pressed hard on him, but did 
not overwhelm him, for he also saw at work the forces 
that he knew must ultimately prevail for good. The 
reason why men gain courage and inspiration from 
Tennyson is that while he saw clearly and realized 
fully all the discouraging surroundings he yet uttered 
a clear call of hope. It was not a cry of despair to 
rouse and save ourselves from ruin, it was a cry of 
faith and courage. The world is moving; let us, too, 
move with it. 

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward, let us 

range, 
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of 

change. 

He believed in progress for the individual and for 
the race. He believed 

That men may rise on stepping-stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things. 



XXXI v IXTRODUCTIOX 

He believed that the race was advancing and the world 
growing better. Affairs were not governed by blind 
chance. He held that 

Thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs. 

He looked beyond the struggles and conflicts of the 
present 

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer and the battle-flags were 

furled 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 

And he saw that there was 

one far-off divine event 
To which the whole creation moves. 

But while Tennyson was a believer in progress, it 
was in an orderly* progress. To his mind the universe 
was not governed by blind chance, but was in the 
hands of an Almighty Power. All things were sub- 
ject to Law, and progress was possible only in con- 
formity to Law. He was, therefore, opposed to 
revolution. He did not believe that it was feasible 
to advance by simply overturning the existing state 
of affairs. In that sense of the word he was conserva- 
tive. But he believed most emphatically that it was 
feasible and even necessary to advance steadily. He 



TENNYSON'S WORK AND ART xxxv 

saw that the law of the world was progress, and that 
it was the duty and privilege of men to live in con- 
formity with that law and to aid in its fulfilment. 
In that sense of the word he was distinctly progres- 
sive. His creed in regard to progress is clearly out- 
lined in "The Princess," where he so emphatically 
ridicules the idea of attempting to change the posi- 
tion of woman by any revolutionary means, and shows 
that the only way for her to attain the highest possi- 
bilities of development is by working in strict con- 
formity with nature, and by slow steady progress 
through a long period of time. 

Tennyson's message was one of progress. It was 
also one of faith. He was a man who thought for 
himself, and when he was confronted with the great 
problems of religion he grappled with them manfully ; 
he went through all the struggle of an honest doubt, 
and he emerged with a triumphant faith. " In Memo- 
riam " is the record of his religious struggle, and of 
his religious belief. It would be difficult to formulate 
Tennyson's creed, if indeed he had a creed, but it is 
impossible to mistake his faith in the great funda- 
mentals of religion — God, immortality, and the ulti- 
mate triumph of right. It is not the fact that he had 
faith that gives him his hold upon men. It is because 
he did not accept his beliefs at second-hand ; because 
he faced and worked out for himself the great prob- 



XXX VI INTRODUCTION 

lems of religion ; and because he has recorded his 
solution of those problems in a form that helps and 
inspires those who read. 

Tennyson's technical skill would by itself give him 
a high place as a literary artist; his splendor of 
description and his brilliancy of imagery would make 
his verse a perpetual delight ; but it is to the truth 
and nobility of what he taught, to his message of 
progress and of faith, that he chiefly owes his hold 
upon the hearts and minds of men. 

The question of Tennyson's rank as a poet is inter- 
esting, but it must be said frankly that for our present 
purpose it is comparatively unimportant. We are not 
so much concerned to know how great he is, or to 
decide whether or not he is to be ranked ahead of 
Wordsworth and Shelley, as we are to learn to appre- 
ciate him, to gain such an insight into his spirit and 
method, as will enable us to share in the delight and 
inspiration that he affords to so many. Still, the 
question is worth considering even though it may not 
be possible to settle it. 

One thing is fairly clear — whatever may be the 
verdict of posterity as to Tennyson's actual or relative 
rank, he is distinctly representative of the age in 
which he lived. He was in the full current of the 
thought of the middle of the century. He partook of 
its scholarship, and caught the swing of its progressive 



TEXXYSOX S WORK AXD ART xxxvil 

spirit, he was a sharer in its doubts and fears, its 
hopes and aspirations, and he has voiced the thoughts 
and feelings of the time as no other man has done. 
Other poets have perhaps reflected more accurately a 
single phase of the complex life and thought of the 
time, but no one has expressed so clearly and truly 
the deep underlying spirit of the age. 

But while there is no doubt as to Tennyson's being 
representative of his age, the question of his lasting 
power, of his ultimate rank, is one that can be settled 
only by time. Any judgment that we may form now 
can be at best only tentative, and may be reversed in 
the years to come. And yet, in spite of this doubt as 
to the verdict of posterity, it seems reasonably certain 
that Tennyson will always hold a place among the 
greatest of our English poets. He attained a perfec- 
tion of art that has hardly been equalled since Shake- 
speare ; and he shows a loftiness of soul, a nobility of 
purpose, a grasp of mind, that have been surpassed in 
our literature only by Milton. Certainly no English 
poet, except possibl) Shakespeare, has produced such 
perfect songs, so rich in melody and meaning, as the 
" Bugle Song " and " Crossing the Bar " ; there has 
been no narrative poem in our language since the days 
of Milton that can compare with the " Idylls of 
the King " ; and surely no poem in the long list of 
those that have added lustre to our English literature 



xxxvil l IN TROD Ui ■ TION 

has ever appealed so strongly to the deepest thoughts 
and feelings of the time as has " In Memoriam." 
When we consider, then, the exquisite art and lofty pur- 
pose to be found in all his work, when we consider the 
great mass of his poetic achievement, and the particular 
poems that stand out as preeminent in their respective 
classes, and when we consider the great effect and the 
broad influence that his poems have had both in Eng- 
land and America, we can feel no doubt that Tennyson 
is to be ranked as one of the world's great poets. And 
as we call over the roll of our poets since Shakespeare 
and Milton, and compare the achievements and the 
influence of each with those of Tennyson, we find 
ourselves wondering if posterity will not be forced to 
award him the third place in the list. 

III. THE PEIXCESS 

This poem first appeared in 1847. A second edition 
was published in 1848, containing some slight changes. 
In the third edition, published in 1850, the alterations 
were more important ; the six songs between the parts 
were inserted for the first time, many additions and 
changes were made in the poem itself, and the pro- 
logue and conclusion were decidedly altered. The 
" weird seizures " of the Prince were not mentioned 
in the early editions, but the passages relating to them 



THE PRINCESS XXXI x 

first appeared in 1851, in the fourth edition. The fifth 
edition was published in 1853, and this contained the 
text in its present form. A study of these changes 
is interesting as throwing light on a poet's methods, 
and on the steps by which he finally brings his work 
to a satisfactory state. The ordinary student, how- 
ever, is concerned mainly, if not entirely, with the 
poem in its completed form, and in this edition, there- 
fore, no consideration is given to the changes in the 
successive editions. 

" The Princess " is a narrative poem in blank verse. 
It consists of seven parts, a prologue, and a conclusion. 
Each of the seven parts is supposed to be told by a 
different person, one of the party of students visiting 
at a country place. Between the parts are inserted 
songs supposed to be sung by the young ladies of the 
party. It is called a " medley," partly because of the 
combination of serious and burlesque in the poem, 
and partly because of the impossible juxtaposition of 
scenes and incidents of different centuries. The sub- 
ject of the poem is the "woman question," and its 
purpose is to show the futility of attempting to alter 
the position of woman by the acquisition of know- 
ledge, or of trying to combat the force of nature and 
of love. The story is that of a princess who estab- 
lishes a college devoted to the advancement of woman, 
and within whose precincts no man is allowed to enter, 



xlii INTRODUCTION 

brought out, and the "genial giant Arac" is a 
delightful figure, but as a whole the characters are 
not especially well drawn or attractive. The charm 
of the poem is certainly not to be found here. 

The lesson of the poem is strong and striking; the 
purpose is clear and well fulfilled. Tennyson aimed 
to show that it is a mistake for woman to attempt to 
secure equality with man by isolating herself from 
him, and that it is an error to suppose that knowledge 
by itself is sufficient to give leadership in the world. 
In other words, the difference between the positions 
of men and women is due not to differences of educa- 
tion or of opportunity, but to the essential difference, 
in the nature of things, between masculine and femi- 
nine. Tennyson did not hold that the position of 
woman was stationary or that she should not strive 
to advance, but he taught that her progress must be 
not in making herself like man, but in developing her 
own nature and her own individuality, and that the 
way to secure this progress was not by isolation and 
by trying to change the immutable laws of nature, 
but by cooperation and by working along the lines 
indicated by nature itself. The desired end was to be 
attained not by revolution or sudden change, but by 
steady progress in conformity with natural law. This 
was a lesson more needed when '• The Princess " was 
published than it is to-day — Tennyson was in ad- 



Til E PRINCESS xliii 

vance of his age, and, in a sense prophetic, — but the 
teaching is still true and the lesson still needed. 

The purpose, then, is lofty, and the moral is a 
worthy one, but a poem is not a sermon, and it takes 
more than a moral to make a successful work of art. 
Unless the setting is worthy, and attractive of itself, 
the thought might better be set forth in prose. Nor 
is the teaching of "The Princess" sufficiently strik- 
ing or novel or appealing, to interest by itself. The 
strength of the poem is not to be found in its moral. 

That " The Princess " is a charming and delightful 
work is undeniable. We are forced to conclude, how- 
ever, that the secret of its charm is not to be found in 
the story, in spite of its interest, nor in the characters, 
agreeable and attractive though they are, nor in the 
moral, although it is a noble and worthy one. The 
source of its fascination is to be found in the beauty 
of its details. It is like a magnificent mosaic, which 
pleases by its general effect of color and form, but the 
highest beauty of which is to be found in its exquisite 
perfection of detail. The distinguishing characteristic 
of the poem is beauty. The " Idylls " impress us by 
their loftiness of thought and splendor of style ; " In 
Memoriam " stirs the deeper feelings and emotions of 
our hearts ; " The Princess " appeals to our love of 
beauty. 

It is not difficult to discover wherein this beauty 



xliv INTRODUCTION 

consists. We have seen that the excellence of Tenny- 
son's art is 1 found in his command of words, his 
skill in versification, and his power of description, and 
it is along these lines that we shall find the chief 
beauty of "The Princess." 

The words of the poem are worth studying by them- 
selves. The certainty which c just the right 
word, the judgment which uses archaic forms un- 
earthed fmm some forgotten author, and the daring 
which docs not hesitate to coin or compound a word on 
occasion are delightful. Still more remarkable is the 
adaptation of sound to sense, the selection of the kind 
of words that suit the meaning, or the sound of which 
suggests and emphasizes the idea that the author 
wish,- — . One has hut to read aloud, with 
this thought in mind, two or three passages taken 
almost at random, to lie impressed with the exquisite 
beauty of the Language. 

Nor is anything more than reading aloud necessary 
to realize the beauty of the versification. The metre 
is the most common in English literature — in fact, it 
may be called the standard English metre. When we 
remember that it is the measure of Shakespeare's 
plays, of "Paradise Lost," and of the "Idylls of the 
King." we realize with what skill it must be handled 
to produce so different an effect in " The Princess." 
The beauty of the verse lies in its exquisite modnla- 



THE PRINCESS xlv 

tion, and in the skill with which it is varied to avoid 
monotony and to adapt the sound to the meaning. 
When the poem is read aloud, one is almost tempted to 
say that, if it told no story and had no higher aim, the 
music of the words and the rhythm of the verse were 
sufficient excuse for its being. 

But the special beauty of the poem lies in the de- 
scriptions, in the pictures with which it abounds. It 
has been said that Tennyson's poetry is eminently 
pictorial, and nowhere is this quality more strikingly 
manifested than in " The Princess.'* All of the char- 
acteristics of his descriptions that have already been 
noted are to be found here — their abundance, their 
variety, their suggestiveness, their relation to the 
action of the story. They form backgrounds, they 
throw light on the characteristics and aims of the 
college and of the principal persons, and they are used 
constantly in figures and comparisons to bring vividly 
before us the object that is portrayed. Many of them 
are striking, most of them beautiful, many exquisitely 
so, and it is in this profuse abundance of beautiful 
pictures, more than in any other one thing, that the 
charm of " The Princess " is to be found. 

The chief beauty of " The Princess " is in its de- 
scriptions, and yet, paradoxical as it may sound, the 
finest and most beautiful parts of the poem are not 
the pictures, but the songs. The statement is not as 



xlvi INTRODUCTION 

a] as it seems ; fur. while the songs are not 
it will be found that an important ele- 
ment in their beauty is the picture \ sted, rather 
than drawn, in each one. Unquestionably the best 
things in •• The Princess M a: 

.e down. < > maid, from yonder mountain height," 
and t. _~ that are sung between the parts of the 

poem. 1 . - iparate the cant- - 

among th< t in our I . and they will 

live. There may d --The Prin 

will be f. ^ as our tongue endures, 

they will be sun,: and remembered and loved. 

rit of the poem as 

a whole. There are those who hold that it is pi 

edly a •• medley/' that the lack of unity in plot an 

notion is a neces suit of its plan, and is 

.ere tore a vital artistic defect. They claim that 

- admirably fulfilled its avowed purpose that 

it must fairly be called a % em, a masterpiece. 

ho hold that this 
►f unity, this confusion of jest and earnest, is 
fatal: that the poem m i failure. The 

true judgment is proba be found between the 

two extremes. The fact that it is a - medley,"' and 
lacking in unity and sustained power, rules it out 
from being called great. And yet it fulfils its pur- 
so well, and d so much real power, that it 



lESTIOHS TO STUDENTS xl 



vn 



is very far from being a failure. It g . dr to con- 

elude, then, that "The Pri:. ss,' 3 hile not greal 
although possessing serious faults and defects in con- 
struction, is still a fine work, and may perhaps be 
called a masterpiece, but that the secret of its charm 
and power is to be found not in its unity or strength 
as a whole, but in the surpassing beaut}- of its lan- 
guage, verse and descriptions. 



IV. SUGGESTIONS TO STUDENTS 

A few words of - ._ stion may assist the student 
in his reading of "The Princess." Remember that 
the object of your reading is appreciation, that is. 
understanding and enjoyment of the poem. Read 
it, therefore, for the sake of enjoyment. Do n< t »o 
at it as a task, but read it as you would any inter- 
esting story. (July remember that while you may 
derive pleasure from even a _. you 

will find far greater pleasure in a reading careful 
enough to reveal the beauties that lie beneath the sur- 
face. 

Read the poem through once, rapidly, not stopping 
to look up words and allusions unless absolutely neces- 
sary to your understanding of the meaning. Then, 
having gained a general knowledge of the story and 



xlviii INTRODUCTION 

of the character of the poem, read carefully the part 
of the introduction immediately preceding this, so as 
to get a clear idea of the purpose of the poem and of 
the points especially to be noted. You are now ready 
for the second reading, which should be done carefully 
and slowly, section by section. 

In this reading, first of all make sure that you un- 
derstand exactly what the poet says. The meaning 
of poetry does not always lie on the surface, and it is 
surprising how, carried on by the rhythm of the verse, 
one can read along, missing entirely the meaning of 
the words. You will find it a decided help in reading 
if you notice the paragraphs of the poem. Tennyson 
is almost the only English poet except Milton to mas- 
ter the art of paragraph structure, and his skill in 
this line makes "The Princess" much easier reading 
than it would be otherwise. If you bear in mind that, 
as a general rule, each paragraph deals with one main 
topic, and that this topic is usually indicated near the 
beginning of the paragraph, it will simplify your read- 
ing. Look up, in the dictionary, notes, or elsewhere, 
every word and allusion that you do not understand. 
Do not burden your memory by trying to remember 
their meanings independently, but try to fix in mind 
the meaning of the word or the force of the allusion 
in the particular passage in which it occurs. Try to 
find as many instances as you can of the happy choice 



SUGGESTIONS TO STUDENTS xlix 

or use of words. Question yourself as to why Tenny- 
son used a particular word or kind of word, and if you 
are in doubt as to whether he was right or not, try to 
substitute a better. 

Watch the metre carefully. For this you need very 
little technical knowledge. " The Princess " is writ- 
ten in iambic pentameter; that is, a line regularly 
contains ten syllables with every second one accented. 
From this normal standard, however, there are fre- 
quent variations. The final vowel sound of one word 
is sometimes blended with the initial vowel sound of 
the following, and there are frequently a number of 
additional unaccented syllables in a line. In such 
cases every syllable is to be sounded, but the line is 
to be read in the same time as if it had only the ordi- 
nary number of syllables, the hurried effect usually 
being intended to suggest the idea of rapidly re- 
peated action. Often the accent is shifted from the 
second to the first half-foot, generally to represent in- 
termittent action. Sometimes this occurs at the be- 
ginning of a line, and the accented syllable is cut off 
from the rest of the verse by a pause so as to give an 
effect of peculiar emphasis. Remember that every 
such variation is intentional, and try to see its pur- 
pose. In this connection notice the melody of Ten- 
nyson's words as distinct from their meaning. Note 
especially his selection of open vowels and liquid 



] INTRODUCTION 

sounds, as well as his skilful use of alliteration, study- 
ing such lines as 

Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere, 
and 

The moan of doves in immemorial elms. 

The only way to appreciate the melody of language 
and verso is 1>\ reading aloud with careful attention 
to the rhythm, and it will well pay you, for the sake 
of the music as well as of the meaning, to memorize 
most of the songs, and some of the finest passages in 
the body of the poem. 

Except the songs, the descriptions arc the best parts 
of the poem. Watch them, then, carefully, noting 
especially two points: the way in which the mention 
of a lew details brings before the mind's eye a finished 
picture, and the way in which the use of the descrip- 
tions aids the development of the poet's deeper 
purpose. 

Keep the different characters distinct in your mind, 
observing the traits of each as shown in the deserip- 
tions of them and in their speeches. Of course, you 
will pay special attention to the Prince and Princess, 
hut do not fail to notice also the contrasted pairs, 
Blanche ami Psyche, Cyril and Florian, and the two 
kings. 



SUGGESTIONS TO STUDENTS li 

The importance of one character you will not per- 
ceive unless it is pointed out to you, and even then 
you will probably not realize it at first. The babe is 
the central figure of the poem. The child is the true 
heroine of the piece, and it is the child's influence 
that shapes the action of the story. Read in this 
connection the first part of Tennyson's letter to Mr. 
Dawson, appended to this introduction, and then notice 
in the poem itself how it is the child that influences 
Ida, and really brings about the change in her. Ob- 
serve also how the child is introduced at the critical 
points of the narrative so that the reader may not lose 
sight of it. A little thought will make clear to you 
the fact that the Princess was overcome and changed 
by the force of instinctive maternal love, roused in her 
by the helpless babe. This is the power that she 
failed to take into account when she planned her 
scheme, and this is the power that will render every 
scheme that ignores it futile. 

This same idea — the power of love for the child — is 
emphasized in the songs between the parts, calling 
the mind back from the impossible aims of the Prin- 
cess to the ideal of domestic love symbolized by the 
child. In the first song it is the memory of a dead 
child that reconciles a husband and wife. In the 
second the living child is the link that binds the 
heart of the absent father to his home. The theme of 



Hi INTRODUCTION 

the bugle song again is love, through which the influ- 
ences of the soul roll on from generation, to genera- 
tion. In the fourth it is the thought of the loved 
ones at home that nerves the warrior in battle, while 
the fifth shows how in maternal love is found the 
source of courage to bear overwhelming sorrow. The 
sixth and last refers more closely than the others to 
the immediate context of the poem, and tells of the 
yielding of a maiden to the love that is the theme of 
all the songs and of the whole work. It is this domi- 
nant idea, running through the songs and symbolized 
in the child, that more than anything else gives unity 
and harmony to the win tie poem. 

Now, having studied •• The Princess" somewhat in 
detail, you are better prepared to enjoy it as a whole. 
You see the dominant purpose underlying the poem, 
and that, in spite of the complexity and confusion, 
this idea gives unity to the whole ; you see the varied 
beauty of language, verse and description, and realize 
that the effect of the whole is produced by the mas- 
terly blending of these details. It will be strange 
now if, when you read the poem a third time, you do 
not find the time and labor expended in your study 
more than paid for by the greater pleasure in your 
reading. At the same time you will have gained an 
increased power to appreciate and to enjoy all poetry. 



SUGGESTIOXS TO STUDENTS liii 

For those who wish to study Tennyson and his work 
more fully, a few words as to the most helpful books 
may be of service. The standard biography, of course, 
is the magnificent Life, in two large volumes, by 
his son Hallam (Macmillan). This is an intensely 
interesting and valuable work, but rather voluminous. 
Arthur Waugh's Alfred Lord Tennyson, A Study of his 
Life and Work (U. S. Book Co.) is an admirable book 
for the young student. It gives a clear insight into 
the poet's personality, and contains just and apprecia- 
tive comment on his work. Dr. Henry Van Dyke's 
little book of essays, The Poetry of Tennyson, is very 
suggestive and interesting, and is an admirable piece 
of critical work. The two last-named books are per- 
haps the best for the general reader, and will probably 
furnish him with all that he needs. Other valuable 
books are Dixon's A Tennyson Primer (Dodd, Mead 
& Co.), and Stopford Brooke's Tennyson, his Art and 
Relation to Modern Life (Putnam). An admirable 
criticism of the poet is to be found in Stedman's Vic- 
torian Poets (Scribner), and there are essays without 
number. 

" The Princess " has been edited and annotated 
many times and in varying degrees of excellence. Most 
of these editions owe a great deal to S. E. Dawson's 
A Study of The Princess, a most valuable and sugges- 
tive book, but published in London and difficult to 



liv INTRODUCTION 

obtain in this country. For a study of the changes in 
the text made in the successive issues of " The Prin- 
cess," Rolfe's edition (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) is 
probably the most convenient. 

There are "books and books" about Tennyson, and 
some of them are helpful ; but to know and enjoy 
and appreciate him, only one volume is necessary — 
his Works. The more you read his poems the better 
you will understand them, and the better you under- 
stand them the more you will enjoy them. 



The following interesting and suggestive loiter was 
written by Tennyson to .Mr. S. E. Dawson after the 
publication of the hitter's excellent book, .1 Study of 
The Princess. 

A.LDWORTH, II LSLEMERE, 

Sikkky. Ndv. 2 1st, 1882. 

Dear Sir, — I thank you for your able and thoughtful essay 
on "The Princess." You have seen, amongst other things, 
that if women ever were to play such freaks the burlesque and 
the tragic might go hand in hand. 

I may tell you that the songs wen- not an afterthought. Be- 
fore the first edition came out I deliberated with myself 
whether I should put songs in between the separate divisions of 
the poem — again, I thought, the poem will explain itself, but 
the public did not see that the child, as you say, was the 
heroine of the piece, and at last I conquered my laziness and 



TENNYSON'S LETTER lv 

inserted them. You would be still more certain that the child 
was the true heroine if, instead of the first song- as it now stands, 

As thro' the land at eve we went, 

I had printed the first song which I wrote, 

The losing of the child. 

The child is sitting on the bank of a river, and playing with flowers 
— a flood comes down — a dam has been broken thro 1 — the child 
is borne down by the flood — the whole village distracted — after 
a time the flood has subsided — the child is thrown safe and 
sound again upon the bank and all the women are in raptures. 
I quite forget the words of the ballad, but I think I may have it 
somewhere. 

Your explanatory notes are very much to the purpose, and I 
do not object to your finding parallelisms. They must always 
recur. A man (a Chinese scholar) some time ago wrote to me 
saying that in an unknown, untranslated Chinese poem there 
were two whole lines of mine, almost word for word. Why 
not ? are not human eyes all over the world looking at the same 
objects, and must there not consequently be coincidences of 
thought and impressions and expressions ? It is scarcely pos- 
sible for any one to say or write anything in this late time of 
the world to which, in the rest of the literature of the world, a 
parallel could not somewhere be found. But when you say 
that this passage or that was suggested by Wordsworth or 
Shelley or another, I demur, and more, I wholly disagree. 
There was a period in my life when, as an artist, Turner for 
instance, takes rough sketches of landskip, etc., in order to 
work them eventually into some great picture, so I was in the 
habit of chronicling, in four or five words or more, whatever 
might strike me as picturesque in nature. I never put these 



lvi INTRODUCTION 

down, and many and many a line lias gone away on the north 
wind, but some remain, e.g. 

A full sea -lazed witli muffli d moonlight. 
Suggestion : 

The sea ono night at Torquay, when Torquay was the most 
lovely sea-village in England, tho' now a smoky town. The 
sky was covered with thin vapour, and the moon was behind it. 

A great Mack cloud 

Drag inward man the deep. 

Suggestion : 
A coming Btorm Been from the" top of Snowdon. 

In tin- •• [dylls of the King" 

with all 

it- stormy crests that smote against the skies. 

Suggestion : 

A storm which fame upon as in the middle of tin- North Sea. 

As the water-lily starts and Blides. 

Suggestion : 

Water-lilies in my own pond, seen on a gusty day with my own 
eyes. They did start and slide in the sudden puffs of wind, till 
caught and stayed by the tether of their own stalks— quite as 
true as Wordsworth's simile ami more in detail. 

A wild wind shook — 

follow, follow, thou Shalt win. 

Suggestion : 

I was walking in the New Forest. A wind did arise and — 



TENNYSON'S LETTER lvn 

Shake the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks 
Of the wild wood together. 

The wind, I believe, was a west wind but, because I wished the 
Prince to go south. I turned the wind to the south and, natu- 
rally, the wind said " follow." 1 believe the resemblance which 
you note is just a chance one. Shelley's lines are not familiar 
to me, tho', of course, if they occur in the ''Prometheus," I 
must have read them. 

I could multiply instances, but I will not bore you. and far 
indeed am I from asserting that books, as well as Nature, are 
not, and ought not to be. suggestive to the poet. I am sure 
that I myself, and many others, find a peculiar charm in those 
passages of such great masters as Virgil or Milton where they 
adopt the creation of a bye-gone poet, and reclothe it. more or 
less, according to their own fancy. Bui there is. I tear, a pro- 
saic set growing up among as, editors of booklets, bookworms, 
index-hunters, or men of great memories and no imagination, 
who impute themselves to the poet, and so believe that he, too, 
has no imagination, but is forever poking his nose between the 
pages of some old volume in order to see what he can appropri- 
ate. They will not allow one to say ,k Ring the bells," without 
finding thai we have taken it from Sir P. Sydney — or even to 
use such a simple expression as the ocean "roars" without 
finding oul the precise verse in Homer or Horace from which 
we have plagiarized it (fact!). 

I have, known an old fish-wife, who had lost two sons at sea, 
clench her fist at the advancing tide on a stormy day and cry 
out — "Ay ! roar, do I how I hates to see thee show thy white 
teeth ! " Now if I had adopted her exclamal ion and put it into 
the mouth of some old woman in one of my poems, I dare say 
the critics would have thought it original enough, but would 



lviii INTRODUCTION 

most likely have advised me to go to Nature for my old women 
and not to my own imagination ; and indeed it is a strong 
figure. 

Here is another little anecdote abort suggestion. When I 
was aboul twenty or twenty-one, 1 went on a tour to the Pyre- 
nees. Lying among these mountains before a waterfall that 
comes down one thousand or twelve hundred feet, I sketched 
ic (according to my custom then I in these words — 

Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn. 

When I printed this a critic informed me thai "lawn" was 
the materia] used in theatres to imitate a waterfall, and gra- 
ciously added, •• .Mr. T. should not go to the boards of a theatre. 
but to Nature herself for his suggestions." — And I had gone 
to Nature hersi If. 

I think it is a moot point whether — if I had known howthat 
effecl was produced on the Btage — I should have ventured to 
publish the line, 

I find that I have written, quite contrary to my custom, a 
letter, when I bad merely intended to thank you for your in- 
teresting commentary. 

Thanking you again for it. 1 beg you to believe me 
Very faithfully yours. 

A. Ti.w I BON. 

P.S. By-the-bye, you are wrong about "the tremulous 

isles Of light" : they are "isles of light," spots Of sunshine 

coming through the leaves, and seeming to slide from one to 
the other, as the procession of girls " moves under shade." 

And surely the "beard-blown*' goat involves a sense of the 
wind blowing the beard on the height, of the ruined pillar. 



THE PKINCESS 

A MEDLEY 



PROLOGUE 

Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day 
Gave his broad ° lawns until the set of sun 
Up to the people : thither flock'd at noon 
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 
The neighbouring borough with their ° Institute 
Of which he was the patron. I was there 
From college, visiting the son, — the son 
A Walter too, — with others of our set, 
Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place. 

And me that morning Walter show'd the house, 10 
Greek, set with busts : from vases in the hall 
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, 
Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay 
Carved stones of the ° Abbey-ruin in the park, 

B 1 



•J THE PRINCESS [Prologue 

Huge ° Ammonites, and the first bones of Time; 

Ami on the tables every clinic and age 

Jumbled together; celts and calumets, 

Claymore and snowshoe, toys in lava, fans 

( )i sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, 

Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, 20 

The cursed Malayan 'crease, and battle-clubs 

From the isles of palm : and higher 011 the walls, 

Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, 

His own forefather's arms and armour hung. 

And "this "he said "was Hugh's at A.gincourt; 

And thai was old Sir Ralph'8 at " Asriddi : 

\ od knight he ! we keep a chronicle 

With all about him " — which he brought, and I 

Dived in a hoard of laics that dealt with knights, 
Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings 30 

Who hud about them at their wills and died; 
And mixt with these, a lady, one that arm'd 
Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate, 
Had 'beat her \\n-<, with slaughter from her walls. 

"0 ° miracle of women." said the book, 
" noble heart who. being strait-besieged 

By this wild king to force her to his wish, 



Prologue] A MEDLEY 3 

Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunird a soldier's death, 

But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost — 

Her stature more than mortal in the burst 40 

Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire — 

Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate, 

And, falling on them like a thunderbolt, 

She trampled some beneath her horses' heels, 

And some were whelm'd with missiles of the wall, 

And some were pnshM with lances from the rock, 

And part were drown'd within the whirling brook: 

( ) miracle of noble womanhood ! " 

So sang the gallant glorious chronicle; 
And, I all rapt in this, "Come out," he said, 50 

"To the Abbey: there is Aunt Elizabeth 
And sister Lilia with the rest." We went 
(I kept the book and had my finger in it) 
Down thru' the park : strange was the sight to me; 
For all the sloping pasture murmur'd, ° sown 
With happy faces and with holiday. 
There moved the multitude a thousand head- : 
The patient leaders of their Institute 
Taught them with farts. One rear'd a font of stone 
And drew, from butts of water on the slope, 60 

The fountain of the moment, playing, now 



4 THE PRINCESS [Prologue 

A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, 
Or ° steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball 

Danced like a wisp: and somewhat lower down 
A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 
A cannon: Echo answer'd in her sleep 
From hollow fields: and here were telescopes 
For ° azmv views; and there a group of girls 
In circle waited, whom the electric shock 

Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter: round the lake 
A little (dock-work steamer paddling plied 7 i 

And shook the lili.-s: perch'd about the knolls 
A dozen angry models jetted steam: 
A petty railway ran: a fire-balloon 
Rose gem-like up before the dusky gro 
And dropt a fairy parachute and past : 
An I there thro' twenty posts of telegraph 
They flash'd a saucy message to and fro 
Between the mimic stations: so that sport 
Went hand in hand with Science; ° otherwhere 80 

Pure sport: a herd of boys with clamour bowFd 
And ° stump'd the wicket : babies roll'd about 
Like tumbled fruit in grass: and men and maids 
Arranged a country dance, ami flew thro' light 
And shadow, while the twangling violin 
Struck up with Sohlierdaddie, and overhead 



Prologue] A MEL LEY 5 

The broad ° ambrosial aisles of lofty lime 

Made noise with ° bees and breeze from end to end. 

Strange was the sight and smacking of the time ; 
And long we gazed, but ° satiated at length 90 

Came to the ruins. High-areh'd and ivy-claspt, 
Of finest ° Gothic lighter than a fire, 
Thro' one wide chasm ° of time and frost they gave 
The park, the crowd, the house; but all within 
The sward was trim as any garden lawn: 
And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth. 
And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends 
From neighbour seats : and there was Ralph himself, 
A broken statue propt against the wall, 
As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport. 100 

Half child half woman as she was. had wound 
A scarf of orange round the stony helm, 
And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, 
That made the old warrior from his ivied nook 
Glow like a sunbeam : near his tomb a feast 
Shone, silver-set; about it lay the guests, 
And there we join'd them : then the maiden Aunt 
Took this fair day for text, and from it preach'd 
An universal culture for the crowd. 
And all things great: but Ave. unworthier, told no 



6 THE PRINCESS [Prologue 

Of college : °he had climb'd across the spikes, 
And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars, 
And he had breathed the Proctor's dogs ; and one 
Discuss'd his tutor, rough to common men, 
But honeying at the whisper of a lord; 
And one the ° Master, as a rogue in ° grain 
Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory. 

But while they talk'd, above their heads I saw 
The feudal warrior lady-clad; which brought 
My book to mind: and opening this I read 120 

Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang 
Willi tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her 
That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, 
And much I praised her nobleness, and "Where," 
Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay 
Beside him) " lives there such a woman now ? " 

Quick answer'd Lilia "There are thousands now 
Such women, but ° convention beats them down: 
It is but bringing up ; no more than that : 
You men have done it : how I hate you all ! 130 

Ah, were I something great! I wish I were 
Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, 
That love to keep us children ! I wish 



Prologue] A MEDLEY 7 

That I were some great princess, I would build 
Far off from men a college like a man's, 
And I would teach them all that men are taught ; 
We are twice as quick !" And here she shook aside 
The hand that play'd the patron with her curls. 

And one said smiling " Pretty were the sight 
If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt 140 
With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, 
And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. 
I think they should not wear our rusty ° gowns, 
But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ralph 
AVho shines so in the corner ; yet I fear, 
If there were many Lilias in the brood, 
However deep you might embower the nest, 
Some boy would spy it." 

At this upon the sward 
She tapt her tiny silken-sandal' d foot : 
" That's your light way ; but I would make it death 
Tor any male thing but to peep at us." 151 

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laugh'd ; 
A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, 
And sweet as English air could make her, she : 
But Walter hail'd a score of names upon her, 



8 THE PRINCESS [Prologue 

And •• petty Ogri 3S," and " ungrateful Puss," 

Ami swore he long'd at college, only long'd, 

All else was well, for she-society. 

They boated and they cricketed ; they talk'd 

At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics ; 160 

They lost their weeks; they vexl the souls of deans; 

They rod.-: they betted; made a hundred friends, 

Ami caughl the blossom of the flying terms, 

But miss'd the mignonette of Vivian-place, 

The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, 

Part banter, part affection. 

" True," she said. 
"We doubt no1 that. yes, you missM us much. 
I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did." 

She held it out ; and as a parrot turns 
(Jp thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eve. 170 

Ami takes a lady's finger with all care. 
And lull's it for true heart and mil lor harm, 
So he with India's. Daintily she shriek'd 
And wrung it. •■ Doubt my word again!" he said. 
" ( 'ume. listen ! here is proof that you were missM • 
We seven stay'd at Christmas up to °read; 

And there we took one tutor as to read : 

The hard-grain'd ° Muses of the cube and square 



Prologue] A MEDLEY 9 

Were out of season: never man. T think, 

So moulder'd in a sinecure as he : iSo 

For while our ° cloisters echo'd frosty feet, 

And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms, 

We did but talk you over, pledge you all 

In ° wassail ; often, like as many girls — 

Sick for the hollies and the yews of home — 

As many little trifling Lilias — play'd 

Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, 

And what's my thought and when and where and how, 

And often told a tale from mouth to mouth 

As here at Christmas." 

She remembered that : 190 
A pleasant game, she thought: she liked it more 
Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. 
But these — what kind of tales did men tell men, 
She wonder'dj by themselves? 

A half-disdain 
Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips: 
And Walter nodded at me; " He began, 
The rest would follow, each in turn; and so 
We forged a sevenfold story. Kind? what kind? 
Chimeras, crotchets. Christmas solecisms, 
Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 20c 

Time by the fire in winter." 



10 THE PRINCESS [Prologue 

•• Kill him now, 
Tin- tyrant ! kill him in the summer too," 
Said Lilia; "Why qo1 qow?" the maiden Aunt. 
*• Why not a summer's as a winter's tale? 
A tale for summer as befits the time, 
And something it should be to suit the place, 
Heroic, for a hero Lies beneath, 
< ira\ e, solemn '. " 

Walter warp'd his mouth at this 
l something so mock-solemn, thai I Laugh'd 
And Lilia woke with Budden-shrilling mirth 210 

An echo Like a ghostly woodpecker, 
1 [id in the ruins ; till the maiden Aunt 
1 A Little Bense of wrong had touch'd her tare 
With colour) tuni'd t«> me with •• As you will ; 
Heroic if you \\ ill. or what you will, 
( >i- be yourself your hero if you will." 

"Take Lilia. thru, fur heroine," clamour'd he. 
" And make her some great Princess, six feet high, 
( rrand, epic, homicidal ; and lie you 
Th.' Prince t" win her : " 

••Then follow me, the Prince," 
1 answer'd, "each be hero in his turn ! 221 

d and yet one, Like shadows in a dream. — 



I] A MEDLEY 11 

Heroic seems our Princess as required — 

But something made to suit with Time and place, 

A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 

A talk of college and of ladies' rights, 

A feudal knight in silken masquerade, 

And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments 

For which the good Sir Ralph had ° burnt them all — 

This were a medley ! we should have him back 230 

Who told the °< Winter's Tale ' to do it for us. 

No matter: we will say whatever comes. 

And let the ladies sing us, if they will, 

From time to time, some ballad or a song 

To give us breathing-space." 

So I began, 
And the rest follow'd : and the women sang 
Between the rougher voices of the men, 
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind : 
And here I give the story and the songs. 



A prince T was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, 
Of temper amorous, as the first of May, 
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl, 
For on my cradle shone the Northern star. 



12 THE PRINCESS [I 

There lived an ancient legend in our house. 
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt 

Because he °cast no shadow, had foretold, 

Hying, that none of all our blood should know 

The shadow from the substance, and that one 

Should come to fight with shadows and to fall. 10 

For so, my mother said, the story ran. 

And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, 

An old and strange affection of the house. 

.Myself too had J weird seizures, Heaven knows 

what : 
On a sudden in the midst of men and day. 
And while I walk'd and talk'd as heretofore, 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts, 
And feel myself the shadow of a dream. 
Our great court-°Galen poised his gilt-head cane, 
And pawM his beard, and mutter'd "catalepsy." 20 
My mother pitying made a thousand prayers; 
.My mother was as mild as any saint, 
Half-canonized by all that Look'd on her, 
So gracious was her tact and tenderness: 
But my good father thought a king a king; 
He cared not for the affection of the house ; 
He held his sceptre like a ° pedant's wand 
To lash offence, and with long arms and hands 



I] A MEDLEY 13 

Reach'd out, and pick'd offenders from the mass 
For judgment. 

Now it chanced that I had been, 30 
While life was yet in bud and blade, betroth'd 
To one, a neighbouring Princess : she to me 
Was ° proxy-wedded with a bootless calf 
At eight years old; and still from time to time 
Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 
And of her brethren, youths of puissance ; 
And still I wore her picture by my heart, 
And one dark tress : and all around them both 
Sweet thoughts would swarm as bees about their 
queen. 

But when the days drew nigh that I should wed, 40 
My father sent ambassadors with furs 
And jewels, gifts, to fetch her : these brought back 
A present, a great labour of the loom ; 
And therewithal an answer vague as wind : 
Besides, they saw the king ; he took the gifts ; 
He said there was a compact ; that was true : 
But then she had a will ; was he to blame ? 
And maiden fancies ; loved to live alone 
Among her women ; certain, would not wed. 



14 THE PRINCESS [I 

°That morning in the presence room I stood 50 

With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends : 
The first, a gentleman of broken means 
(His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts 
Of revel ; and the last, my other heart, 
And almost my half-self, for still we moved 
Together, twinn'd as horse's ear and eye. 

Now, while they spake, I saw my father's faee 
Grow long and troubled like a rising moon, 
Inflamed with wrath : he started on his feet, 
Tore the king's Letter, snow'd it down, and rent 60 

The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof 
From skirt to skirt : and at the last he sware 
That he would send a hundred thousand men, 
And bring Inn- in a whirlwind: then he chew'd 
The thrice-turi l'd end of wrath, and °cook'd his spleen, 
Communing with his captains of the war. 

At last I spoke. " Mv lather, let me go. 
It cannot be but some gross error lies 
In this report, this answer of a king, 
Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable : 70 

Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, 
Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame, 



I] A MEDLEY 15 

May rue the bargain made." And Florian said : 

" I have a sister at the foreign court, 

Who moves about the Princess ; she, you know, 

Who wedded with a nobleman from thence : 

He, dying lately, left her, as I hear, 

The lady of three castles in that land : 

Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean." 

And Cyril whisper'd : °" Take me with you too." So 

Then laughing " what, if these weird seizures come 

Upon you in those lands, and no one near 

To point you out the shadow from the truth ! 

Take me : I'll serve you better in a strait ; 

I grate on rusty hinges here : " but " No ! " 

Koar'd the rough king, " you shall not ; we ourself 

Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead 

In iron gauntlets : break the council up." 

But when the council broke, I rose and past 
Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town ; 90 
Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out ; 
Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bathed 
In the green gleam of ° dewy-tassell'd trees : 
What were those fancies ? wherefore break her troth ? 
Proud look'd the lips : but while I meditated 
A wind arose and rush'd upon the South, 



16 THE PRINCESS [I 

And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks 
Of the wild woods together ; and a Voice 
Weill with it, •• Follow, follow, thou shall win.'* 

Then, ere the "silver sickle of that month ioo 

Became her golden shield, 1 stole from court 
With Cyril and with Florian, onperceived, 
Cat-footed thro' the town and half in dread 
To hear my father's clamour al our backs 
With Ho! from some bay-window shake the night; 
Bui all was quiel : from the "bastion'd walls 
Like threaded spiders, one by one. we dropt, 
And flying reach'd the frontier: then we crosl 
To a livelier land : and SO by tilth and grange, 
And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, no 

We gain'd the 'mother-city thick with towers, 
And in the imperial palace found the king. 

His name was Gama ; crack'd and small his voice, 
But bland the smile thai like a wrinkling wind 
On glassy water drOve his cheek in lines; 
A little dry old man. ° without a star. 
Nol like a king: three days he feasted us, 
And on the fourth I spake of why we came, 
And mv betroth'd. " You do us. Prince," he said, 



I] A MEDLEY 17 

Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 120 

"All honour. We remember love ourselves 

In our sweet youth : there did a compact pass 

Long summers back, a kind of ceremony — 

I think the ye&v in which our olives fail'd. 

I would 3^011 had her, Prince, with all my heart, 

With my full heart : but there were widows here, 

Two widows, Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche; 

They fed her theories, in and out of place 

Maintaining that with equal husbandry 

The woman were an equal to the man. 130 

They harp'd on this ; with this our banquets rang ; 

Our dances broke and buzz'd in knots of talk ; 

Nothing but this; my very ears were hot 

To hear them : ° knowledge, so my daughter held, 

Was all in all: they had but been, she thought, 

As children ; they must lose the child, assume 

The woman : then, Sir, awful odes she wrote, 

Too awful, sure, for what they treated of, 

But all she is and does is awful ; odes 

About this losing of the child ; and rhymes 140 

And dismal lyrics, prophesying change 

Beyond all reason: these the women sang; 

And they that know such things — I sought but peace ; 

No critic I — would call them masterpieces : 



18 THE PRINCESS [I 

They master'd me. At last she begg'd a boon, 

A certain summer palace which I have 

Hard by your father's frontier: I said no, 

Yrt being an easy man. gave it : and there, 

All wild to found an University 

For maidens, on tin' spur she fled; and more 150 

We know not,— only tins: they see do men, 

Nut ev'n her brother Arac, uor the twins 

Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her 

As on a kind of paragon ; and I 

1 Pardon me saying it 1 were much loth to breed 

Dispute betwixt myself and mine: but since 

(And I confess with right) you think me bound 

In some sort, I can give you letterd to her; 

And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance 

Almost at uaked nothing." 

Thus the kin-- ; 160 

And I. tho' nettled that he seem'd to slur 

With garrulous ease and oily courtesies 

Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 

Bui chafing me on fire to find my bride) 

W'nit forth again with both my friends. We rode 

Many a long league hark to the North. At last 

From hills, that look'd across a land of hope 

We dropt with evening on a rustic town 



I] A MEDLEY 19 

Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve, 

Close at the boundary of the ° liberties; 170 

There, enter'd an old hostel, call'd mine host 

To council, plied him with his richest wines, 

And show'd the late-writ letters of the king. 

He with a long low °sibilation, stared 
As blank as ° death in marble; then exclainrd 
Averring it was clear against all rules 
For any man to go: but as his brain 
Began to mellow, " If the king," he said, 
" Had given us letters, was he bound to speak ? 
The king would bear him out; " and at the last — 180 
The ° summer of the vine in all his veins — 
"No doubt that we might make it worth his while. 
She once had past that way ; he heard her speak ; 
She scared him; life! he never saw the like; 
She look'd as grand as doomsday and as grave: 
And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there; 
He always made a point to post with marcs ; 
His daughter and his housemaid were the °boys: 
The land, he understood, for miles about 
Was till'd by women ; all the swine were sows, 190 
And all the dogs " — 

But while he jested thus, 



20 The pbwcess [i 

A thought flash'd thro' me which I clothed in act, 

Remembering how we three presented Maid 

( )i Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, 

In ° masque or pageant at my father's court. 

We sent mine host to purchase female gear; 

He brought it, and himself, a "sight to shake 

The midriff of despair with laughter, °holp 

To lace us up. till. each, in maiden plumes 

We rustled: him we gave a costly bribe coo 

To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, 

And boldly ventured on the liberties. 

We 1'ollowM up the river as we rode, 
And rode lill midnighl when the college lights 
Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 

And linden alley: then we pasl an arch, 

Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings 

From four wingM horses dark against the stars; 

And some inscription ran along the front, 

But deep in shadow: further on we gaiifd 210 

A little street half garden and half house; 

But scarce could hear each other speak for noise 

Of °clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling 

On silver anvils, and the splash and stir 

Of fountains spouted up and showering down 



I] A MEDLEY 21 

In meshes of the jasmine and the rose : 
And all about us peal'd the nightingale, 
Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare. 

There stood a bust of ° Pallas for a sign, 
By two sphere lamps °blazon'd like Heaven and Earth 
With constellation and with continent, 221 

Above an entry : riding in, we call'd ; 
A plump-arm'd Ostleress and a stable wench 
Came running at the call, and help'd us down. 
Then stept a buxom hostess forth, and sail'd, 
Full-blown, before us into rooms which °gave 
Upon a pillar' d porch, the bases lost 
In laurel : her we ask'd of that and this, 
And who were ° tutors. "Lady Blanche," she said, 
" And Lady Psyche." " Which was prettiest, 230 

Best-natured ? " " Lady Psyche." " Hers are we," 
One voice, we cried ; and I sat down and wrote, 
°In such a hand as when a field of corn 
Bows all its ears before the roaring East : 

" Three ladies of the Northern empire pray 
Your Highness would enroll them with your own, 
As Lady Psyche's pupils." 

This I seal'd : 



22 THE PRIX CESS [II 

The seal was ° Cupid bent above a scroll, 

And o'er his head ° Uranian Venus hung, 

And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes : 240 

I gave the letter to be sent with dawn ; 

And then to bed, where half in doze I seem'd 

To float about a glimmering night, and watch 

A full sea glazed with ° muffled moonlight, swell 

On some dark shore just seen that it was rich. 



11 



As thro' the land at eve we -went, 

And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, 
We fell out, my wife and I, 
O we fell out I know not why, 

And kiss'd again with tears. 
And blessings on the falling out 

That all the more endears. 
When we fall out with those we love 

And kiss again with tears! 
For when we came where lies the child 

We lost in other years, 
There above the little grave, 
O there above the little grave, 

We kiss'd again with tears. 



II] A MEDLEY 23 

At break of day the College Portress came : 

She brought us ° Academic silks, in hue 

The lilac, with a silken hood to each, 

And zoned with gold ; and now when these were on, 

And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, 

She, curtseying her obeisance, let us know 

The Princess Ida waited : out we paced, 

I first, and following thro' the porch that °sang 

All round with laurel, issued in a court 

° Compact of lucid marbles, °boss'd with lengths 10 

Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay 

Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers. 

The ° Muses and the Graces, group'd in threes, 

Enring'd a billowing fountain in the midst; 

And here and there on lattice edges lay 

Or book or lute ; but hastily we past, 

And up a flight of stairs into the hall. 

There at a board by tome and paper sat, 
With two tame leopards couch'd beside her throne, 
All beauty compass'd in a female form, 20 

The Princess ; liker to the inhabitant 
Of some clear planet close upon the Sun, 
Than our man's earth; such eyes were in her head, 
And so much grace and power, breathing down 



24 THE PRINCESS [II 

From over her arch'd brows, with every turn 
Lived thro' her to the tips of her long hands, 
And to her feet. She rose her ° height, and said : 

•• We give you welcome : not without ° redound 
Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, 
The first-fruits of the stranger: aftertime, 30 

And that ° full voice which circles round the grave, 
Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. 
What ! arc the ladies of your land so tall ?" 
" We of the court." said Cyril. " From the court" 
She answer'd, '-then ye know the Prince? " and he : 
"The climax of his age! as tho 5 there were 
One rose in all the world, your Highness that, 
He worships your ideal : " she replied : 
" We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear 
This barren verbiage, current among men, 40 

Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. 
Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem 
As arguing love of knowledge and of power; 
Your language proves you still the ° child. Indeed, 
We dream not of him : when we set our hand 
To this great work, we purposed with ourself 
Never to wed. You likewise will do well, 
Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling 



II] A MEDLEY 25 

The tricks, which make us toys of men, that so, 
Some future time, if so indeed you will, 50 

You may with those self-styled our lords ally 
Your fortunes, justlier balanced, scale with scale." 

At those high words, we ° conscious of ourselves, 
Perused the matting ; then an officer 
Kose up, and read the ° statutes, such as these : 
Not for three years to correspond with home ; 
Not for three years to cross the liberties ; 
Not for three years to speak with any men ; 
And many more, which hastily subscribed, 
We ° enter'd on the boards : and " Now," she cried, 60 
" Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall ! 
Our statues ! — not of those that men desire, 
Sleek ° Odalisques, or oracles of °mode, 
Nor stunted squaws of West or East ; but ° she 
That taught the Sabine how to rule, and ° she 
The foundress of the Babylonian wall, 
The Carian ° Artemisia strong in war, 
The °Rhodope, that built the pyramid, 
Clelia, ° Cornelia, with the ° Palmyrene 
That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows 70 

Of ° Agrippina. Dwell with these, and lose 
Convention, since to look on noble forms 



26 THE PRIX CESS [II 

Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism 

That which is higher. lift your natures up : 

Embrace our aims : work out your freedom. Girls, 

Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd : 

Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, 

The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite 

And slander, die. Better nol be at all 

Than not be noble. Leave us: you may go: 80 

To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 

The fresh arrivals of the week before; 

For they press in from all the provinces, 

And till the hive." 

She spoke, and bowing waved 
Dismissal: back agaiu we crosl the court 
To Lady Psyche's : as we enter'd in, 
There sal along the °t'orms, like morning doves 
That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, 
A patient range of pupils: she herself 
Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, 90 

A quick brunette, well-moulded, falcon-eyed, 
And on the hither side, or so she look'd, 
Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, 
In shining draperies, °headed like a star, 
Her maiden babe, a double April old, 
°Aglaia slept. We sat : the Lady glanced : 



II] A MEDLEY 27 

Then Florian, but no livelier than the °dame 
That whisper'd " Asses' ears " among the sedge, 
"My sister." " Comely, too, by all that's fair," 
Said Cyril. "0 hush, hush ! " and she began. ioo 

°" This world was once a fluid haze of light, 
Till toward the centre set the starry tides, 
And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast 
The planets : then the monster, then the man ; 
Tattoo'd or °woaded, winter-clad in skins, 
Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate ; 
As yet we find in barbarous isles, and here 
Among the lowest." 

Thereupon she took 
A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past ; 
Glanced at the legendary Amazon no 

As emblematic of a nobler age ; 
°Appraised the Lycian custom, spoke of those 
That °lay at wine with °Lar and Lucumo ; 
Ran down the "Persian, Grecian, Roman lines 
Of empire, and the woman's state in each, 
How far from just ; till warming with her theme 
She fulmined out her scorn of °laws Salique 
And little-footed China, touch'd on Mahomet 
With much contempt, and came to °chivalry : 



28 THE PRINCESS [II 

When some respect, however slight, was paid 120 

To woman, superstition all awry : 

However then commenced the dawn : a beam 

Had slanted forward, falling in a land 

Of promise ; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed, 

Their debt of thanks to her who first had dared 

To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, 

Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 

None lordlier than themselves but that which made 

Woman and man. She had founded; they must build. 

Here might they learn whatever men were taught: 

Let them not fear : some said their heads were less: 

Some men's were small ; not they the least of men ; 

For often fineness compensated size : 133 

Besides the brain was like the hand, and grew 

With using; thence the man's, if more was more ; 

He took advantage of his strength to be 

First in the field : some ages had been lost ; 

But woman ripen'd earlier, and her life 

Was longer; and albeit their glorious names 

Were fewer, scatter'd stars, yet since in truth 140 

The highest is the measure of the man, 

And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, 

Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, 

But Homer, Plato, °Verulam ; even so 



II] A MEDLEY 29 

With woman : and in arts of government 

Elizabeth and others ; arts of war 

The peasant Moan and others ; arts of grace 

°Sappho and others vied with any man : 

And, last not least, she who had left her place, 

And bow'd her state to them, that they might grow 

To use and power on this Oasis, lapt 151 

In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight 

Of ancient influence and scorn. 

At last 
She rose upon a wind of prophecy 
Dilating on the future ; " everywhere 
"Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, 
Two in the tangled business of the world, 
Two in the liberal offices of life, 
Two plummets dropt for one to sound the abyss 
Of science, and the secrets of the mind : 160 

Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more : 
And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth 
Should bear a double growth of those rare souls, 
Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world." 

She ended here, and beckon'd us : the rest 
Parted ; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she 
Began to address us, and was moving on 



30 THE PRIX CESS [II 

Iu gratulation, till as when a boat 

Tacks, and the slacken'd sail flaps, all her voice 

Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried 170 

" My brother ! " " Well, my sister." " 0," she said, 

" What do yon here ? and in this dress ? and these ? 

Why who are these '.' a wolf within the fold! 

A pack of wolves ! the Lord be gracious to me ! 

A plot, a plot, a plot, to ruin all ! " 

"No plot, no plot," he answer'd. " Wretched boy, 

How saw you not the inscription on the gate, 

°Let no man enter rx on pain of death?" 

'•And if I had." he answer'.!. - who could think 

The softer °Adams of your Academe, 180 

sister, °Sirens tho' they be, were such 

As chanted on the blanching bones of men ? " 

" But you will And it otherwise," she said. 

"You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools! my vow 

Binds me to speak, and that iron will, 

That axelike edge unturnable, our Head, 

The Princess." " Well then. Psyche, take my life, 

And nail me like a ° weasel on a grange 

For warning: bury me beside the gate, 

And cut this epitaph above my bones; 190 

Here lies a brother by a sister slain, 

All for the common good of wo mankind." 



II] A MEDLEY 31 

" Let me die too," said Cyril, " having seen 
And heard the Lady Psyche." 

I struck in : 
" Albeit so mask'd, Madam, I love the truth ; 
Receive it ; and in me behold the Prince 
Your countryman, affianced years ago 
To the Lady Ida : here, for here she was, 
And thus (what other way was left) I came." 
" Sir, O Prince, I have no country ; none ; 200 

If any, this ; but none. Whate'er I was 
Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 
Affianced, Sir ? love-whispers may not breathe 
Within this vestal limit, and how should I, 
"Who am not °mine, say. live : the thunderbolt 
Hangs silent ; but prepare : I speak ; it falls." 
" Yet pause," I said : " for that inscription there, 
I think no more of deadly lurks therein. 
Than in a clapper clapping in a °garth, 
To scare the fowl from fruit : if more there be, 210 
If more and acted on. what follows ? war ; 
Your own work marr'd: for this your Academe. 
Whichever side be Victor, in the halloo 
Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass 
With all fair theories only made to gild 
A stormless summer." " Let the Princess judge 



32 THE PRIX CESS [II 

Of that," she said: "farewell, Sir — and to you. 

I shudder at the sequel, but I go.'' 

"Are you that Lady Psyche," I rejoin'd, 
" The fifth in line from that old Florian, 220 

Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall 
(The gaunt old Baron with his "beetle brow 
°Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) 
As he "bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell, 
And all else fled? we point to it, and we say, 
The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold, 
But branches current yet in kindred veins." 
"Are you that Psyche/' Florian added; <* she 
With whom I sang about the morning hills, 
Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple °fly, 230 
And snared the squirrel of 4he glen ? are you 
That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow, 
To smoothe my pillow, mix the foaming draught 
Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read 
My sickness down to happy dreams ? are you 
That brother-sister Psyche, both in one ? 
You were that Psyche, but what are you now? " 
"You are that Psyche." Cyril said, "for whom 
I would be that for ever which I seem, 
Woman, if I might sit beside your feet, 240 



II] A MEDLEY 33 

And glean your scatter d sapience." 

Then once more, 
" Are you that Lady Psyche," I began, 
" That on her bridal morn before she past 
From all her old companions, when the king 
Kiss'd her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties 
Would still be dear beyond the southern hills ; 
That were there any of our people there 
In want or peril, there was one to hear 
And help them ? look ! for such are these and I." 
"Are you that Psyche," Florian ask'd. '• to whom, 250 
In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn 
Came flying while you sat beside the well ? 
The creature laid his muzzle on your lap, 
And sobb'd, and you sobb'd with it, and the blood 
AVas sprinkled on your kirtle, and y ou wept. 
That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept. 
O by the bright head of my little niece, 
You were that Psyche, and what are you now ? " 
" You are that Psyche," Cyril said again, 
" The mother of the sweetest little maid, 260 

That ever crow'd for kisses." 

" Out upon it ! " 
She answer'd, "peace! and why should I not play 
The °Spartan Mother with emotion, be 



34 THE PRINCESS [U 

The °Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind ? 

Him you call great: he for the common weal, 

The fading politics of mortal Korae, 

As I might slay this child, if good need were, 

Slew both his sons : and I, shall I, on whom 

The "secular emancipation turns 

Of half this world, be swerved from right to save 270 

A prince, a brother? a little will I yield. 

Bes1 so. perchance, for us, and well for you. 

hard, when love and duty clash ! I fear 

My conscience will not count me fleckless ; yet — 

Hear my conditions : promise (otherwise 

You perish) as you came, to slip away 

To-day, to-morrow, soon : it shall be said, 

These women were too barbarous, would not learn; 

They fled, who might have shamed us: promise all." 

What could we else, we promised each ; and she, 
Like some wild creature newly-caged, commenced 281 
A °to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused 
By Florian : holding out her lily arms 
Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said : 
" I knew you at the first : tho' you have grown 
You scarce have alter'd : I am sad and glad 
To see you, Florian. / give thee to death 



II] A MEDLEY 35 

My brother ! it was duty spoke, not I. 
My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. 
Our mother, is she well ? " 

With that she kiss'd 290 
His forehead, then, a moment after, clung 
About him, and betwixt them blossom'd up 
From out a common vein of memory 
Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, 
And far allusion, till the "gracious dews 
Began to glisten and to fall : and while 
They stood, so rapt, we gazing, came a voice, 
" I brought a message here from Lady Blanche." 
Back started she, and turning round we saw 
The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood, 300 

Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, 
A rosy blonde, and in a college gown, 
That clad her like an April daffodilly 
(Her mother's °colour) with her lips apart, 
And all her thoughts as °fair within her eyes, 
As bottom agates seen to wave and float 
In crystal currents of clear morning seas. 

So stood that same fair creature at the door. 
Then Lady Psyche, "Ah — Melissa — you! 
You heard us ? " and Melissa, " O pardon me ! 310 



36 THE PRIX CESS [II 

I heard, I could not help it, did not wish : 

But. dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, 

Nor think I bear that heart within my breast, 

To give three gallant gentlemen to death." 

"I trust yon," said the other, "for we two 

Were always friends, none closer, °elm and vine: 

But yet your mother's jealous temperament — 

Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove 

The °I)anai'd of a leaky vase, for fear 

This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 320 

My honour, these their lives.'' " Ah, fear me not" 

Replied Melissa ; " no — I would not tell, 

Xo, not for all °Aspasia's cleverness, 

Xo, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things 

That °Sheba came to ask of Solomon." 

" Be it so," the other, " that we still may lead 

The now light up, and culminate in peace, 

For Solomon may come to Sheba yet." 

Said Cyril, "Madam, he the wisest man 

Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 330 

Of Lebanonian cedar : nor should you 

(Tho\ Madam, you should answer, we would ask) 

Less welcome hud among us, if you came 

Among us. debtors for our lives to you, 

Myself for something more." He said not what, 



II] A MEDLEY 37 

But " Thanks." she answer'd, " Go : we have been too 

long 
Together : keep your hoods about the face ; 
They do so that °affect abstraction here. 
Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; and hold 
Your promise : all, I trust, may yet be well." 340 

We turn'd to go, but Cyril took the child, 
And held her round the knees against his waist, 
And blew the swolPn cheek of a trumpeter, 
While Psyche watch'd them, smiling, and the child 
Push'd her flat hand against his face and laugh'd ; 
And thus our conference closed. 

And then we strolPd 
For half the day thro' stately theatres 
Bench'd crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard 
The grave Professor. On the lecture slate 
The circle rounded under female hands 350 

With flawless demonstration : follow'd then 
A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, 
With scraps of thundrous Epic °lilted out 
By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies 
And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long 
That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time 
Sparkle for ever : then we dipt in all 



38 THE PRINCESS [II 

That treats of whatsoever is, the state, 

The total chronicles of man, the mind, 

The morals, something of the °franie, the rock, 360 

The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower, 

Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest, 

And whatsoever can be taught and known ; 

Till like three horses that have broken fence, 

And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, 

\\V issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke: 

k - Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we." 

" They hunt old trails " said Cyril " very well ; 

But when did woman ever yet invent?" 

" Ungracious ! " answer'd Florian ; " have you learnt 

No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talk'd 371 

The °trash that made me sick, and almost sad ? " 

" trash," he said, " but with a kernel in it. 

Should I not call her wise, who made me wise ? 

And learnt ? I learnt more from her in a flash, 

Than if my brainpan were an empty hull, 

And every Muse tumbled a science in. 

A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, 

And round these halls a thousand baby loves 

Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts, 380 

Whence follows many a vacant pang ; but O 

With me, Sir, enter'd in the bigger boy, 



II] A MEDLEY 39 

The Head of all the golden-shafted firm, 

The long-limb'd lad that had a Psyche too ; 

He cleft me thro' the stomacher ; and now 

What think you of it, Florian ? do I chase 

The substance or the shadow ? will it hold ? 

I have no sorcerer's °malison on me, 

No ghostly hauntings like his Highness. °I 

Flatter myself that always everywhere 390 

I know the substance when I see it. Well, 

Are °castles shadows ? Three of them ? Is she 

The sweet proprietress a shadow ? If not, 

Shall those three castles patch my tatter'd coat ? 

For dear are those three castles to my wants, 

And dear is sister Psyche to my heart, 

And two dear things are one of double worth, 

And much I might have said, but that my zone 

Unmann'd me : then the Doctors ! to hear 

The Doctors ! O to watch the thirsty plants 400 

Imbibing ! once or twice I thought to roar, 

To break my chain, to shake my mane : but thou 

Modulate me, Soul of mincing mimicry ! 

Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat ; 

Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 

Star-sisters answering under crescent brows; 

Abate the stride, which speaks of man, and loose 



40 THE PRINCESS [II 

A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, 

Where they like swallows coming out of time 

Will wonder why they came : but hark the bell 4 xo 

For dinner, let us go ! " 

And in we stream'd 
Among the columns, pacing staid and still 
By twos and threes, till all from end to end 
With beauties every shade of brown and fair 
In colours gayer than the morning mist, 
The long hall glitter'cl like a bed of flowers. 
Mow might a man not wander from his wits 
Pierc'd thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own 
Intent on her, who rapt in glorious dreams, 
The second-sight of some Astraean age, 420 

Sat compass'd with professors : they, the while, 
Discuss'd a dcmbt and tost it to and fro : 
A clamour thicken'd, mixt with °inmost terms 
Of art and science: Lady Blanche alone 
Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, 
With all her autumn tresses falsely brown, 
Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat 
In act to spring. 

At last a solemn grace 
Concluded, and we sought the gardens : there 
One walk'd reciting by herself, and one 



II] A MEDLEY 41 

In this hand held a volume as to read, 

And smoothed a petted peacock down with that : 

Some to a low song oar'd a shallop by, 

Or under arches of the marble bridge 

Hung, shadow'd from the heat : some °hid and sought 

In the orange thickets : others tost a ball 

Above the fountain-jets, and back again 

With laughter : others lay about the lawns, 

Of the older sort, and murmur'd that their May 

Was passing : what was learning unto them ? 44 o 

They wish'd to marry ; they could rule a house ; 

Men hated learned women : but we three 

Sat muffled like the °Fates ; and often came 

Melissa hitting all Ave saw with shafts 

Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 

That harm'd not : then day droopt ; the chapel bells 

Call'd us : we left the walks ; we mixt with those 

Six hundred °maidens clad in purest white, 

Before two streams of light from wall to wall, 

° While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 450 

Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court 

A long melodious thunder to the sound 

Of solemn psalms, and silver litanies, 

The °work of Ida, to call down from Heaven 

A blessing: on her labours for the world. 



42 THE PRINCESS [III 

III 

Sweet and low, sweet and low, 

Wind of the western sea, 
Low, low, breathe and blow, 

Wind of the western sea! 
Over the rolling waters go, 
Come from the dying moon, and ldow, 

Blow him again to me ; 
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. 

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, 

Father will come t" thee soon . 
Rest, rest, on mother's breast, 

Father will conn- to thee soon ; 
Father will come to his babe in the nest, 
Silver sails all out of the west 

Under the silver moon ; 
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. 

"Morn in the white wake of the morning star 
Came furrowing all the orient into gold. 
We rose, and cadi by other drest with care 
Descended to the court that lav three parts 
In shadow, but the .Maises' heads were touch'd 
Above the darkness from their native East. 

There while we stood beside the fount, and watch'd 
Or seeni'd to watch the dancing bubble, approach'd 



Ill] A MEDLEY 43 

Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep, 

Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes 10 

The circled °Iris of a night of tears ; 

" And fly," she cried, " fly, while yet you may ! 

My mother knows: " and when I ask'd her "how," 

" My fault " she wept " my fault ! and yet not mine ; 

Yet mine in part. hear me, pardon me. 

My mother, 'tis her wont from night to night 

To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. 

She says the Princess should have been the Head, 

Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms; 

And so it was agreed when first they came; 20 

But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, 

And she the left, or not, or seldom used ; 

Hers more than half the students, all the love. 

And so last night she fell to canvass you : 

Her countrywomen! she did not envy her. 

' Who ever saw such wild barbarians ? 

Girls? — more like men ! ' and at these words the snake, 

My secret, seem'd to stir within my breast; 

And oh. Sirs, could I help it, but my check 

Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 30 

To fix and make me hotter, till she laugh'd: 

'0 marvellously modest maiden, you ! 

Men ! girls, like men ! why, if they had been men 



44 THE PRINCESS [III 

You need not set your thoughts in °rubric thus 

For wholesale comment.' Pardon, I am shamed 

That I must needs repeat for my excuse 

What looks so little graceful : i men" (for still 

My mother went revolving on the word) 

'And so they are, — very like men indeed — 

And with that woman closeted for hours!' 40 

Then came these dreadful words out one b}- one, 

' Why — tlie.se — are — men:' 1 shudder'd : 'and you 

know it.' 
'0 ask me nothing,' I said : • And she knows too, 
And she conceals it." So my mother cluteh'd 
The truth ;it one.-, but with no word from me; 
And now thus early risen she goes to inform 
The Princess: Lady Psyche will be crush'd ; 
Bu1 you may yet be saved, and therefore fly : 
But heal me with your pardon ere you go." 

"What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush?" 50 

Said Cyril: " Tale one. blush again: than wear 
Those lilies, better blush our lives away. 
Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven" 
He added, "lest some classic Angel speak 
In scorn of us, ' They mounted, °Ganymedes, 
To tumble, °Vulcans, on the second morn.' 



Ill] A MEDLEY 45 

But I will melt this marble into wax 

To yield us farther furlough : " and he went. 

Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought 
He scarce would prosper. " Tell us," Florian ask'd, 
" How grew this feud betwixt the right and left." 
" long ago," she said, " betwixt these two 62 

Division smoulders hidden; 'tis my mother, 
Too jealous, often fretful as the wind 
Pent in a crevice : much I bear with her : 
I never knew my father, but she says 
(God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; 
And still she rail'd against the state of things. 
She had the care of Lady Ida's youth, 
And from the Queen's decease she brought her up. 70 
But when your sister came she won the heart 
Of Ida : they were still together, grew 
(For so they said themselves) inosculated ; 
°Oonsonant chords that shiver to one note; 
One mind in all things : yet my mother still 
Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories, 
And angled with them for her pupil's love : 
She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what : 
But I must go: I dare not tarry," and light, 
As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 80 



46 THE PRIX CESS [III 

Then murmur'd Florian gazing after her, 
" An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. 
If I could love, why this were she : how pretty 
Her blushing was. and how she blush'd again, 
As if to close with Cyril's random wish : 
Not like your Princess cramm'd with erring pride, 
Xor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow." 

"The crane," I said, -may chatter of the crane. 
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I 
An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere. 90 

My princess, o my princess! true she errs, 
But in her own grand way : being herself 
Three times more noble than three score of men, 
She sees herself in every woman e 
And so she wears her error like a crown 
To blind the truth and me : for °her, and her, 
°Hebes are they Jo hand ambrosia, mix 
The nectar; but — alt she — whene'er she moves 
The Samian °Here rises and she speaks 
A °Memnon smitten with the morning Sun." 100 

So saying from the court we paced, and gain'd 
The terrace ranged along the northern front. 
And leaning there on those balusters, high 



Ill] A MEDLEY 47 

Above the empurpled "champaign, drank the gale 
That blown about the foliage underneath, 
And sated with the innumerable rose, 
Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came 
Cyril, and yawning " hard task," he cried ; 
" Xo fighting shadows here ! I forced a way 
Thro' solid opposition crabb'd and gnarl'd. no 

Better to clear °prime forests, heave and thump 
A league of street in summer solstice down. 
Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. 
I knock'd and, bidden, enter'd : found her there 
At °point to move, and settled in her eyes 
The green malignant light of coming storm. 
Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oilM. 
As man's could be; yet maiden-meek I pray'd 
Concealment : she demanded who we v 
And why we came ? I fabled nothing fair, 120 

But, your °example pilot, told her all. 
Up went the hush'd amaze of hand and eye. 
But when I dwelt upon your old affiance, 
She answer'd sharply that I talk'd astray. 
I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, 
And our three lives. True — we had °limed our- 
selves 
With open eyes, and we must take the chance. 



48 THE PRINCESS [III 

But such extremes, I told her, well might harm 

The woman's cause. * Not more than now,' she 

said, 
'So puddled as it is with favouritism.' 130 

I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall 
Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew: 
Her answer was ' Leave m* 1 to deal with that.' 
I spoke of war to come and many deaths. 
And she replied, her duty was to speak. 
And duty duty, clear of consequences. 
I grew discouraged. Sir: but since I knew 
No rock so hard but that a little wave 
May heat admission in a thousand years. 
I recommenced ; • Decide not ere you pause. 140 

I find you here hut in the second place, 
Some say the third — the authentic foundress you. 
I offer boldly : we will scat you highest : 
°\Vink at our advent: help my prince to gain 
His rightful bride, and here I promise you 
Some palace in our land, where you shall reign 
The head and heart of all our fair she-world, 
And your great name flow on with broadening time 
For ever. 1 Well, she balanced this a little, 
And told me she would answer us to-day, 150 

Meantime be mute: thus much, nor more I gain'd." 



Ill] .4 MEDLEY 49 

He ceasing, came a message from the Head. 
" That afternoon the Princess rode to take 
The °dip of certain strata to the North. 
Would we go with her ? we should find the land 
Worth seeing ; and the river made a fall 
Out yonder : " then she pointed on to where 
A double hill ran up his furrowy forks 
Beyond the thick-leaved °platans of the vale. 

Agreed to this, the day fled on thro' all 160 

Its range of duties to the appointed hour. 
Then summon'd to the porch we went. She stood 
Among her maidens, higher by the head, 
Her back against a pillar, her foot on one 
Of those tame °leopards. Kittenlike he roll'd 
And paw'd about her sandal. I drew near ; 
I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came 
Upon me, the weird vision of our house : 
The Princess Ida seem'd a hollow show, 
Her gay-furr'd cats a painted fantasy, 170 

Her college and her maidens, empty masks, 
And I myself the shadow of a dream, 
For all things were and were not. Yet I felt 
My heart beat thick with passion and with awe; 
Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 



50 THE PRINCESS [III 

Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes 

That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook 

My pulses, till to horse we got, and so 

Went forth in long "retinue following up 

The river as it narrow'd to the hills. 1S0 

I rode beside her and to me she said : 
" O friend, we trust that you esteem'd us not 
Too harsh to your companion yestermorn ; 
Unwillingly we spake." " No — not to her," 
I answer'd, " butto °one of whom we spake 
Your Eighness might have seem'd the thing you 

say.- 
l - Again ? " she cried, " are you ambassadresses 
From him to me '.' we give you. being strange, 
A license : speak, and let the topic die." 

I stammer'd that I knew him — could have wish'd — ■ 
; - ( >ur king expects — was there no precontract ? 191 
There is no truer-hearted — all. you seem 
All he prefigured, and he could not see 
The bird of passage flying south but long'd 
To follow : surely, if your Highness keep 
Your purport, you will shock him ev'n to death, 
Or baser courses, children of despair."' 



Ill] A MEDLEY 51 

" Poor boy," she said, " can he not read — no books ? 
Quoit, tennis, ball — no games ? nor deals in that 
Which men delight in, martial exercise ? 200 

To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, 
M ('thinks he seems no better than a girl ; 
As girls were once, as we ourself have been : 
We had our dreams ; perhaps he mixt with them : 
We touch on cur dead self, nor shun to do it, 
Being other — since we learnt our meaning here, 
To lift the woman's falPn divinity 
Upon an even pedestal with man." 

She paused, and added with a haughtier smile 
" And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, 210 

At no man's beck, but know ourself and thee, 

°Vashti, noble Vashti ! Summon'd out 
She kept her state, and left the drunken king 
To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms." 

" Alas your Highness °breathes full East," I said, 
" On that which leans to you. I know the Prince, 

1 prize his truth: and then how vast a work 
To assail this "gray preeminence of man ! 
You grant me license ; might I use it ? think ; 

Ere half be done perchance your life may fail ; 220 



52 THE PRINCESS [III 

Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, 
And takes and ruins all ; and thus your pains 
May only make that footprint upon sand 
Which old-recurring waves of prejudice 
Resmooth to nothing : might I dread that you, 
With only Fame for spouse and your great deeds 
For "issue, yet may live in vain, and miss, 
Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due, 
Love, children, happiness?" 

And she exclaim'd, 
"Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild! 230 
What ! tho 5 your Prince's love were like a God's, 
Have we not made ourself the sacrifice ? 
You are bold indeed: we are not talk'd to thus: 
Yet will we say for children, would they grew 
Like field-flowers everywhere! we like them well: 
But children die: and let me tell you, girl, 
Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die: 
They with the sun and moon renew their light 
For ever, blessing those that look on them. 
Children — that men may pluck them from our hearts, 
Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — 241 

— children — there is nothing upon earth 
More miserable than she that has a son 
And sees him err ; nor would we work for fame; 



Ill] A MEDLEY 53 

Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great, 

Who learns the one °pou sto whence afterhands 

May move the world, tho' she herself effect 

But little : wherefore up and act, nor shrink 

For fear our solid aim be dissipated 

By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been, 250 

In lieu of many mortal °nies, a race 

Of giants living, each, a thousand years, 

That we might see our own work out, and watch 

The sandy footprint harden into stone." 

I answer'd nothing, doubtful in myself 
Tf that strange Poet-princess with her grand 
Imaginations might at all be won. 
And she broke out interpreting my thoughts: 

"No doubt we seem a kind of monster to yon ; 
We are used to that : for women, up till this 260 

Cramp'd under worse than South-sea-isle °taboo, 
Dwarfs of the °gynaeceum, fail so far 
In high desire, they know not, cannot guess 
How much their welfare is a passion to us. 
If we could give them surer, quicker proof — 
Oh if our end were less achievable 
By slow approaches, than by single act 



5 4 THE PRINCESS [III 

Of immolation, any phase of death, 

We were as prompt to °spring against the pikes, 

Or down the "fiery gulf as talk of it, 

To compass our dear sisters' liberties." 



270 



She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear ; 
And up we came to where the river sloped 
To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks 
A breath of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, 
And danced the colour, and, below, stuck out 
The bones of some vasl bulk thai lived and roar'd 
Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, 
"As these rude bones to us, are we to her 
That will be." °- Dare we dream of that," I ask'd, 280 
" Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, 
That practice betters ? » •• How," she cried, " you love 
The metaphysics ! read and earn our prize, 
A golden brooch : beneath an emerald plane 
Sits °Diotima, teaching him that °died 
Of hemlock ; our device ; wrought to the life; 
She rapt upon her subject, he on her : 
For there are °schools for all." " And yet " I said 
" Methinks I have not found among them all 
One °anatomic." " Nay, we thought of that," 290 

She answer'd, " but it pleased us not : in truth 



Ill] A MEDLEY 55 

We shudder but to dream our maids should ape 

Those monstrous males that °carve the living hound. 

And cram him with the fragments of the grave, 

Or in the dark dissolving human heart, 

And holy secrets of this °microcosm, 

Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, 

°Encarnalize their spirits : yet we know 

Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter °hangs : 

Howbeit ourself, foreseeing casualty, 300 

Nor willing men should come among us, learnt, 

For many weary moons before we came, 

This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself 

Would tend upon you. To your question now, 

Which touches on the workman and his work. 

Let there be light and there was light : ' tis so : 

For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; 

And all creation is one act at once, 

The birth of light : but we that are not all, 

As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 310 

And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make 

One act a phantom of succession : thus 

Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time ; 

But in the shadow will we work, and mould 

The woman to the fuller day." 

She spake 



56 THE PRINCESS [III 

With kindled eyes : we rode a league beyond, 

And, o'er a bridge of pinewood crossing, came 

On flowery levels underneath the crag, 

Full of all beauty. " how sweet " I said 

(For I was half-oblivious of my mask) 320 

" To linger here with one that loved us." " Yea," 

She answer'd, " or with fair philosophies 

That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields 

Are lovely, lovelier not the °Elysian lawns, 

Where paced the °Demigods of old, and saw 

The soft white vapour streak the crowned towers 

Built to the Sun : " then, turning to her maids, 

"Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward ; 

Lay out the viands." At the word, they raised 

A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 330 

With fair °Corinna's triumph ; here she stood, 

Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek. 

The woman-conqueror ; woman-conquer'd there 

The bearded °Victor of ten-thousand hymns, 

And all the men mourn' d at his side : but we 

Set forth to climb ; then, climbing, Cyril kept 

With Pysche, with Melissa Florian, I 

With mine affianced. Many a little hand 

Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, 

Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 340 



IV] A MEDLEY 57 

In the dark crag : and then we turn'd, we wound 
About the cliffs, the copses, out and in, 
Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names 
Of °shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff, 
Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the Sun 
Grew broader toward his death and fell, and all 
The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 



The splendour falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits old in story : 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, 
And thinner, clearer, farther going ! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying : 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich sky, 

They faint on hill or field or river: 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
And grow for ever and for ever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying, 



dS THE PBINCESS [IV 

" There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun, 

If that °hypothesis of theirs be sound " 

Said Ida ; " let us down and rest ; " and we 

Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices, 

By every Coppice-feather' d chasm and cleft, 

Dropt thro' the ambrosial gloom to where below 

No bigger than a glowworm shone the tent 

Lamp-lit from the °inner. Once she lean'd on me, 

Descending ; once or twice she lent her hand, 

And blissful palpitations in the blood, 10 

Stirring a sudden transport rose and fell. 

But when we planted level feet, and dipt 
Beneath the sal in dome and enter'd in, 
There leaning deep in broider'd down we sank 
Our elbows: on a tripod in the midst 
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glow'd 
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and °gold. 

Then she, " Let some one sing to us: lightlier move 
The minutes fledged with music : " and a maid, 
( )f those beside her, smote her harp, and sang. 20 

" Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 



IV] A MEDLEY 59 

In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 

" Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
That brings our friends up from the underworld, 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 30 

" Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

" Dear as remember 'd kisses after death, 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love, 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no more." 40 

She ended with such passion that the tear, 
She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl 
Lost in her bosom : but with some disdain 
Answer'd the Princess, " If indeed there haunt 
About the moulder'd lodges of the Past 
So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, 
Well needs it we should °cram our ears with wool 
And so pace by : but thine are fancies hatch'd 
In silken-folded idleness ; nor is it 
Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, 50 



60 THE PRINCESS [IV 

But trim our sails, and let old bygones be, 

While down the streams that float us each and all 

To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, 

Throne after throne, and molten on the waste 

Becomes a cloud : for all things serve their time 

Toward that great year of equal mights and rights, 

Nor would I light with iron laws, in the end 

Found golden : let the past be past ; let be 

Their cancelled Babels: tho' the rough °kex break 

The starred mosaic, and the °beard-blown goat 60 

°Hang on the shaft, and the °\vild figtree split 

Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear 

A trumpet in the distance pealing news 

Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, c burns 

Above the unrisen morrow : " then to me, 

" Know you no song of your own land," she said, 

'• Not such as moans about the retrospect, 

But deals with the other distance and the hues 

Of promise ; not a "death's-head at the wine." 

Then I remember'd one myself had made, 70 

What time I watch'd the °swallow winging south 
From mine own land, part made long since, and part 
Now Avhile I sang, and maidenlike as far 
As I could ape their treble, did I sing. 



IV] A MEDLEY 01 

" O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, 
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, 
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. 

" O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, 
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, 
And dark and true and tender is the North. 80 

" O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light 
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, 
And cheep and twittgr twenty million loves. 

" O were I thou that she might take me in, 
And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 

" Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love 
Delaying as the tender ash delays 
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green? 

" O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown : 90 

Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, 
But in the North long since my nest is made. 

" O tell her, brief is life but love is long, 
And brief the sun of summer in the North, 
And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 

" O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, 
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, 
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee." 



62 THE PRINCESS [IV 

I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, 
Like the °Ithacensian suitors in old time, ioo 

Stared with great eyes, and laugh'd with alien lips, 
And knew not what they meant; for still my voice 
llang false: but smiling " Not for thee," she said, 
"0 °Bulbul, any rose of "Gulistan 
Shall bursl her veil: °inarsh-divers, rather, maid, 
Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake 
Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this 
A mere love-poem! <> for such, my friend. 
We hold them slight: they mind US of the time 
When we made °l>rieks in Egypt. Knaves are men, 
Thai lute and tlnte fantastic tenderness, m 

And dress the victim to the offering nj), 
And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, 
And play the slave to gain the tyranny. 
Poor soul ! 1 had a maid of honour once : 
She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, 
A rogue of °canzonets and serenades. 

I loved her. Peace he with her. She is dead. 

So the\ blaspheme the muse ! Bui great is song 
Used to great ends: ourself have often tried 12c 

°Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dash'd 
The passion of the prophetess; for song 
Is duer unto freedom, force and growth 



IV] A MEDLEY 63 

Of spirit than to junketing and love. 

Love is it ? Would this same mock-love, and this 

°Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats, 

Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, 

Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes 

To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered 

Whole in ourselves and owed to none. Enough ! 130 

But now to leaven play with profit, you, 

Know you no song, the true growth of your soil, 

That gives the manners of your countrywomen ? " 

She spoke and turn'd her sumptuous head with eyes 
Of shining expectation fixt on mine. 
Then while I dragg'd my brains for such a song, 
Cyril, °with whom the bell-mouth'd glass had 

wrought, 
Or masterd by the sense of sport, began 
To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch 
Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 140 

Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, 
I frowning ; Psyche nusli'd and wami'd and shook ; 
The lily like Melissa droop'd her brows ; 
" Forbear," the Princess cried ; " Forbear, Sir " I ; 
And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, 
I smote him on the breast ; he started up; 



G4 THE PRINCESS [IV 

There rose a shriek as of a city sack'd ; 

.Melissa clamour'd " Flee the death ;" °" To horse," 

Said Ida; "home ! to horse !" and lied, as tiies 

A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk, 150 

When some one batters at the dovecote-doors, 

Disorderly the women. Alone I stood 

With Fl<»nan. cursing Cyril, vext at heart, 

In the pavilion : there like parting hopes 

1 heard them passing from me: hoof by hoof, 

And every hoof a knell to my desires. 

Clang'd on the bridge; and then another shriek. 

••The Head, the Head, the Princess. the Head!" 

For blind with rage she miss'd the plank, and roll'd 

In the river. Out I sprang from °glow to gloom: 160 

There whirl'd her white robe like a blossom'd branch 

°Rapt to the horrible fall : a glance I gave, 

No more; but woman-vested as I was 

Plunged; and the flood drew; yet I caught her; then 

Oaring one arm. and bearing in my left 

The weight of all the hopes of half the world, 

Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree 

Was half-disrooted from his place and stoop'd 

To drench his dark locks in the gurgling wave 

Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught, 

And grasping down the boughs I gain'd the shore. 



IV] A MEDLEY 65 

There stood her maidens °glimmeringly group' d 172 
In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew 
My burthen from mine arms ; they cried " she lives : " 
They bore her back into the tent : but I, 
So much a kind of shame within me wrought, 
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes, 
Nor found my friends ; but push'd alone on foot 
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine) 
Across the woods, and less from Indian craft 180 

Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length 
The garden portals. Two great statues, Art 
And Science, "Caryatids, lifted up 
A weight of emblem, and betwixt were "valves 
Of open-work in ° which the hunter rued 
His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows 
Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon 
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates. 

A little space was left between the horns. 
Thro' which I clamber'd o'er at top with pain, 190 

Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks, 
And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to hue, 
Now poring on the glowworm, now the star. 
I paced the terrace, till the °Bear had wheel'd 
Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. 



66 THE PRIX CESS [IV 

A step 
Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 
Than female, moving thro' the uncertain gloom, 
Disturb'd me with the doubt " if this were she " 
But it was Florian. " Hist Hist," he said, 
" They seek us : out so late is °out of rules. 200 

Moreover ' seize the strangers' is the cry. 
u How came you here ? " I told him : " I,*' said he, 
" Last of the train, a °moral leper, I, 
To whom none spake, half sick at heart, return'd. 
Arriving all confused among the rest 
With hooded brows I crept into the hall, 
And, crouch'd behind a ° Judith, underneath 
The head of Holofernes peep'd and saw. 
Girl after girl was call'd to trial: each 
Disclaim'd all knowledge of us: last of all, 210 

Melissa: trust me, Sir, I pitied her. 
She, questional if she knew us men, at first 
Was silent; closer prest, denied it not: 
And then, demanded if her mother knew, 
Or Psyche, she afHrmM not, or denied: 
From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her, 
Easily gather'd °either guilt. She sent 
For Psyche, but she was not there ; she call'd 
For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors; 



IV] A MEDLEY 6 

She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face ; 2. 
And I slipt out : but whither will you now ? 
And where are Psyche, Cyril ? both are fled : 
What, if together ? that were not so well. 
Would rather Ave had never come ! I dread 
His wildness, and the chances of the dark." 

" And yet," I said, " you wrong him more than I 
That struck him : this is proper to the clown, 
Tho' °smock'd, or furr'd and purpled, still the clown, 
To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame 
That which he says he loves : for Cyril, howe'er 2; 
He deal in frolic, as to-night — the song 
Might have been worse and sinn'd in grosser lips 
Beyond all pardon — as it is, I hold 
These flashes on the surface are not he. 
He has a solid base of temperament : 
But as the waterlily starts and slides 
Upon the level in little puffs of wind, 
Tho' anchor'd to the bottom, such is he. " 



Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near 
Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, " Names : " 240 
He, standing still, was clutch'd ; but I began 
To °thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind 



68 THE PRINCESS [IV 

And double in and out the °boles, and race 

By all the fountains : fleet I was of foot : 

Before me shower'd the rose in flakes ; behind 

I heard the puff'd pursuer; at mine ear 

Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, 

And secret laughter tickled all my soul. 

At last I hook'd my ankle in a vine. 

That claspt the feet of a °Mneinosyne, 250 

And falling on my face was caught and known. 

They °haled us to the Princess where she sat 
High in the hall: above her droop'd a lamp, 
And made the single jewel on her brow 
Burn like the °mystic fire on a mast-head, 
Prophet of storm : a handmaid on each side 
Bow'd toward her. combing out her long black hair 
Damp from the river; and close behind her stood 
Eight Slaughters of the plough, stronger than men, 
Huge women °blowzed with health, and wind, and rain, 
And labour. Each was like a °Druid rock ; 261 

Or like a spire of land that stands apart 
Cleft from the main, and °waiPd about with mews. 

Then, as we came, the crowd dividing °clove 
An advent to the throne : and therebeside, 



IV] A MEDLEY 69 

Half-naked as if caught at once from bed 

And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 

The lily-shining child ; and on the left, 

Bow'd on her palms and folded up from wrong, 

Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, z-jo 

Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect 

Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 

" It was not thus, Princess, in old days : 
You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips: 
I led you then to all the °Castalies ; 
I fed you with the milk of every Muse ; 
I loved you like this kneeler, and you me 
Your second mother : those were gracious times. 
Then came your new friend: you began to change — 
I saw it and grieved — to slacken and to cool ; 280 

Till taken with her seeming openness 
You turn'd your warmer currents all to her, 
To me you froze : this was my meed for all. 
Yet I bore up in part from ancient love, 
And partly that I hoped to win you back, 
And partly conscious of my own deserts, 
And partly that you were ray civil head, 
And chiefly you were born for something great, 
In which I might your fellow-worker be, 



70 THE PRIX CESS [IV 

When time should serve ; and thus a noble scheme 

Grew up from seed we two long since had sown ; 

In us true growth, in her a ° Jonah's gourd, 292 

Up in one night and due to sudden sun : 

We took this palace ; but even from the first 

You stood in your own light and darken d mine. 

What student came but that you °planed her path 

To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, 

A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, 

I your old friend and tried, she new in all ? 

But still her lists were swell'd and mine were lean; 

Yet I bore up in hope she would be known : 301 

Then came these wolves : they knew her ; they endured, 

Long-closeted with her the yestermorn, 

To tell her what they weir, and she to hear: 

And me none told : not less to an eye like mine 

A lidless watcher of the public weal, 

Last night, their mask was patent, and my foot 

Was to you : but I thought again : I fear'd 

To meet a cold " We thank you, we shall hear of it 

From Lady Psyche : " you had gone to her, 310 

She told, perforce ; and winning easy grace, 

Xo doubt, for slight delay, remain'd among us 

In our young nursery still unknown, the stem 

Less °grain than touehwood, while my honest heat 



IV] A MEDLEY 71 

Were all miscounted as malignant haste 

To push my rival out of place and power. 

But public use required she should be known ; 

And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 

I broke the letter of it to keep the sense. 

I spoke not then at first, but watclrd them well, 320 

Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done ; 

And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) 

I came to tell you ; found that you had gone, 

Eidd'11 to the hills, she likewise : now, I thought, 

That surely she will speak ; if not, then I : 

Did she ? These monsters blazon'd what they were, 

According to the coarseness of their kind, 

For thus I hear ; and known at last (my work) 

And full of cowardice and guilty shame, 

I grant in her some sense of shame, she flies ; 330 

And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, 

I that have lent my life to build up yours, 

I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time, 

And talent, I — you know it — I will not boast: 

Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, 

Divorced from my experience, will be chaff 

For every gust of chance, and men will say 

We did not know the real light, but chased 

The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread." 



the p: ;iv 

g I the Pri:: ss od : 

Y u broken: we dk - 341 

For this lost lamb ^she pointed to the child) 
Our mind . 

-reat th- throat, 

:roni cix -- samile. 

.e plan was mine. I built the nes: 1. 

I si p'd to updrag 
: on her mother p: 
I from he:. 
A liq 11 of pr. 

- - 
AN - i ne arm 

the bol* id while 

1 upon her came a li: 
About the doors, and on a sudden rush'd 

ne pursu 
•, 

I her face, and wing'd 
she fell 
s which the Head 
T .-: 1. .-'.:- :nazed. and in her lion's mood 

:.iise 
_ 



A MEDLEY 

And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom 

id. 
When the wild peasant rights himself, the c riek 
Flames, and fa in the he 

For a : - v her br- 

en with some grea' at her heart, 

itated, her hand si ad we heard 

In the dead hush the papers that she held 
oce the lost lamb at her f« 
• out a bitter bleating for its dam : 
The plaintive cry jarr'd on her i 
The sci .er, made a sudden turn 

A- if to speak, but. utterance failing L 
-'..em on to me, as who sh'i 
ad," and I read — tw — one her si: 

...ter, when t the Pi;: 

way 

inew not your ungracious laws, which lea: 
:ous of what temper you are 1 
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell 
Into his father's hands, who h 
ying close upon his terri: 
: round and in the dark i:. :u, 

And here he keeps me hostage for his son.*' 



74 THE PRIX CESS [IV 

The second was my father's running thus : 
" You have our son : touch not a hair of his head : 
Render him up unscathed : give him your hand : 
Cleave to your contract : tho' indeed we hear 390 

You hold the woman is the better man ; 
A rampant heresy, such as if it spread 
Would make all women °kick against their Lords 
Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve 
That we this night should pluck your palace down; 
And we will do it, unless you send us back 
Our son, on the instant, whole." 

So far I read ; 
And then stood up and spoke impetuously. 

" not to pry and peer on your reserve, 
But led by golden wishes, and a hope 400 

The child of regal compact, did I break 
Your precinct; not a scorner of your sex 
But venerator, zealous it should be 
All that it might be : hear me, for I bear, 
Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs, 
From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life 
Less mine than yours : my nurse would tell me of you ; 
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon, 
Vague brightness ; when a boy, you stoop'd to me 



IV] A MEDLEY 75 

From all high places, lived in all fair lights, 4 io 

Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south 

And blown to inmost north ; at eve and dawn 

With Ida, Ida, Ida rang the woods ; 

The leader wildswan in among the stars 

Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of °glowworm light 

The mellow breaker murmur'd Ida. Now, 

Because I would have reach'd you, had you been 

Sphered up with °Cassiopeia, or the enthroned 

°Persephone in Hades, now at length, 

Those winters of °abeyance all worn out, 420 

A man I came to see you : but, indeed, 

Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, 

O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait 

On you, their centre : let me say but this, 

That many a famous man and woman, town 

And °landskip, have I heard of, after seen 

The °dwarfs of presage: tho' when known, there grew 

Another kind of beauty in detail 

Made them worth knowing ; but in you I found 

My boyish dream involved and dazzled down 430 

And master'd, while that after-beauty makes 

Such head from act to act, from hour to hour, 

Within me, that except you slay me here, 

According to your bitter statute-book, 



THE PRINCESS [IV 

I cannot cease to follow - they say 

The "seal does music ; who desire you more 

Than growing boys their manhood: dying lips. 

With many thousand matters left to do. 

The breath of life: more than poor men wealth, 

Than sick men health — yours, yours, not mine — but 

half 
Without you: with yon, whole: and of those halves 

worthiest : and 1. . and bar 442 

Your heart with system out from mine. I hold 
That it becomes no man to nuj ir. 

But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms 
To follow up the worthiest till he die : 

me not all unauthorized 
Behold your father's letter." 

I I • ne knee 
Kn ■■'.'::. z. 1 gave it. which she caught, and dash'd 

■en'd at her feet : a tide of tierce 450 

Invective seem'd ichind her lips, 

:ts a river level with the dam 

v to burst and flood the world with foam : 

so she would have spoken, but there rose 
A hubbub in the court of half the m 
Gathered together : from the °illumined hall 
Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a pi 



IV] A MEDLEY 77 

Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded e'- 

And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes. 

And gold and golden heads : they to and fro _ : 

Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red. some pale, 

All open-mouth'd. all gazing to the light. 

Some crying there was an army in the land. 

And some that men were in the very walls. 

And some they cared not : till a clamour grew 

As of a new- world ~~ Babel, woman-built. 

And worse-confounded : high above them stood 

The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 

N r peace she look'd, the Head : but rising up 
Robed in the long night of her deep ha: •-: 

To the open window moved, remaining there 
Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves 
Of tempest, when the = crimson-rolling eye 
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light 
Dash themselves dead. SI Tetch'd her arms and 

caird 
Across the tumult and the tumult fell. 

*• What fear ye. brawlers ? am not I your Head? 
On me. me. me. the storm first breaks : I dare 
All these male thunderbolts : what is it ve fe 



78 THE PRINCESS [IV 

Peace ! there are those to °avenge us and they come : 

If not, — myself were like enough, girls, 4 8i 

To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, 

And clad in iron burst the ranks of war, 

Or, falling, °protomartyr of our cause, 

Die : yet I blame you not so much for fear ; 

Six thousand years of fear have made you that 

From which I would redeem you : but for those 

That stir this hubbub — you and you — I know 

Your faces there in the crowd — tomorrow morn 

We hold a great convention : then shall they 490 

That love their voices more than duty, learn 

With whom they deal, dismiss'd in shame to live 

No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, 

Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, 

Full of weak poison, "turnspits for the clown, 

The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, 

Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, 

But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, 

To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, 

For ever slaves at home and fools abroad." 5 00 

She, ending, waved her hands : thereat the crowd 
Muttering, dissolved : then with a smile, that look'd 
A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff, 



IV] A MEDLEY 79 

When all the glens are drown'd in azure gloom 
Of thunder-shower, she °floated to us and said : 

" You have done well and like a gentleman, 
And like a prince : you have our thanks for all : 
And you look well too in your woman's dress : 
Well have you done and like a gentleman. 
You saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks: 510 

Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood — 
Then men had said — but now — What hinders me 
To take such bloody vengeance on you both ? — 
Yet since our father — Wasps in our good hive, 
You would-be quenchers of the light to be, 
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears — 

would I had his sceptre for one hour ! 

You that have dared to break our bound, and gull'd 
Our servants, wrongVl and lied and thwarted us — 
/ wed with thee ! / bound by precontract 520 

Your bride, your bondslave ! not tho' all the gold 
That veins the world were pack'd to make your crown, 
And every spoken tongue should °lord you. Sir, 
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us : 

1 trample on your offers and on you : 
Begone : w r e will not look upon you more. 
Here, push them out at gates." 



80 THE PRINCESS [IV 

In wrath she spake. 
Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough 
Bent their broad faces toward us and °address'd 
Their motion : twice I sought to plead my cause, 53 o 
But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands, 
The weight of destiny : so from her face 
They push'd us, down the steps, and thro' the court, 
And with grim Laughter thrust us out at gates. 

AYe eross'd the street and gain'd a potty mound 
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 
The voices murmuring. While I listen'd, came 
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt: 
I seem'd to move among a world of ghosts; 
The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard. 540 
The jest and earnest working side by side, 
'I'he cataract and the tumult and the kings 
Were shadows; and the long fantastic night 
With all its doings had and had not been, 
And all things were and were not. 

This went by 
As strangely a> it cane, and on my spirits 
Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy ; 
Xot long; I shook it off; for spite of doubts 
And sudden ghostly shado wings I was one 



IV] A MEDLEY 81 

To whom the touch of all mischance but came 550 

As night to him that sitting on a hill 

Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun 

Set into sunrise ; then we moved away. 



Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, 

That beat to battle where he stands ; 
Thy face across his fancy comes, 

And gives the battle to his hands : 
A moment, while the trumpets blow, 

He sees his brood about thy knee ; 
The next, like fire he meets the foe, 

And strikes him dead for thine and thee. 

So Lilia sang : we thought her half-possess'd, 
She struck such warbling fury thro' the words ; 
And, after, feigning pique at what she call'd 
The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime — 
Like one that wishes at a danee to change 
The music — clapt her hands and cried for war, 
Or some grand fight to kill and make an end : 
And he that next inherited the tale 
Half turning to the broken statue, said, 
" Sir Ralph has got your colours : if I prove 
Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me ? 
It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb 



82 THE PRINCESS [V 

Lay by her like a model of her hand. 

She took it and she flung it. " Fight " she said, 

" And make us all we would be, great and good." 

He knightlike in his cap instead of casque, 

A cap of Tyrol borrow'd from the hall, 

Arranged the favour, and assumed the Prince, 



Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, 
We stumbled on a °stationaiy voice, 
And " Stand, who goes ? " " Two from the palace " I. 
"The °second two : they wait," he said, " pass on ; 
His Highness wakes : " and one, that clash'd in 

arms, 
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led 
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard 
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake 
From blazon'd lions o'er the imperial tent 
AVhispers of war. 

Entering, the sudden light 10 

Dazed me half-blind : I stood and seem'd to hear 
As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes 
A lisping of the °innumerous leaf and dies, 



V] A MEDLEY 83 

Each missing in his neighbour's ear ; and then 
A strangled titter, out of which there brake 
On all sides, clamouring etiquette to death, 
Unmeasured mirth ; while now the two old kings 
Began to wag their baldness up and down, 
The fresh young captains flash' d their glittering teeth, 
The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew, 20 
And slain with laughter roll'd the gilded °Squire. 

At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with 
tears, 
Panted from weary sides " King, you are free ! 
We did but keep you surety for our son, 
If this be he, — or a draggled °mawkin, thou, 
That tends her bristled grunters in the °sludge : " 
For I was drench'd with ooze, and torn with briers, 
More crumpled than a poppy from the °sheath, 
And all one rag, disprinced from head to heel. 
Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm 30 

A whisper'd jest to some one near him, "Look, 
He has been among his shadows." "Satan take 
The old women and their shadows ! (thus the King 
Roar'd) make yourself a man to fight with men. 
Go: Cyril told us all." 

As boys that slink 



84 THE PRINCESS [ 

From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye, 
Away we stole, and transient in a trice 
From what was left of faded °woman-slough 
To sheathing splendours and the golden scale 
Of °harness, issued in the sun, that now 
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, 
And hit the northern hills. Here Cyril met us. 
A little shy at first, but by and by 
We twain, with mutual pardon ask'd and given 
For stroke and song, resolder'd peace, whereon 
Follow'd his tale. Amazed he fled away 
Thro' the dark land, and later in the night 
Had come on Psyche weeping : " then we fell 
Into your father's hand, and there she lies, 
But will not speak, nor stir." 

He show'd a tent 5 
A stone-shot off: we enter'd in, and there 
Among piled arms and rough accoutrements, 
Pitiful sight, wrapp'd in a soldier's cloak, 
Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot, 
And push'd by rude hands from its pedestal, 
All her fair length upon the ground she lay : 
And at her head a follower of the cam}), 
A charr'd and wrinkled piece of womanhood, 
Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. 



V] A MEDLEY 85 

Then Florian knelt, and " Come " he whisper'd to her, 
" Lift up your head, sweet sister : lie not thus. 61 

What have you done but right ? you could not slay 
Me, nor your prince : look up: be comforted: 
Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought, 
When fall'n in darker ways." And likewise I : 
" Be comforted : have I not lost her too, 
In whose least act abides the nameless charm 
That none has else for me ? " She heard, she moved, 
She moan'd, a folded voice ; and up she sat, 
And raised the cloak from brows as pale and smooth 
As those that mourn half-shrouded over death 71 

In deathless marble. " Her," she said, "my friend — 
Parted from her — betray 'd her cause and mine — 
Where shall I breathe ? why kept ye not your faith ? 
base and bad ! what comfort ? none for me ! " 
To whom remorseful Cyril, " Yet I pray 
Take comfort : live, dear lady, for your child ! " 
At which she lifted up her voice and cried. 

"Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, my child, 
My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more ! 80 

For now will cruel Ida keep her back; 
And either she will die from want of care, 
Or sicken with ill-usage, when they say 



S6 THE PRINCESS [V 

The child is hers — for every little fault, 

The child is hers ; and they will beat my girl 

Remembering her mother : my flower ! 

Or they will take her, they will make her hard, 

And she will pass me by in after-life 

With some cold reverence worse than were she dead. 

Ill mother that I was to leave her there, 90 

To lag behind, scared by the cry they made, 

The horror of the shame among them all : 

But I will go and sit beside the doors, 

And make a wild petition night and day, 

Until they hate to hear me like a wind 

Wailing for ever, till they open to me, 

And lay my little blossom at my feet, 

My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child : 

And I will take her up and go my way, 

And satisfy my soul with kissing her : 100 

All : what might that man not deserve of me 

Who gave me back my child ? " " Be comforted," 

Said Cyril, ••you shall have it : " but again 

She veil'd her brows, and prone she sank, and so 

Like tender things that being caught feign death, 

Spoke not, nor stirr'd. 

By this a murmur ran 
Thro' all the camp and inward raced the scouts 



V] A MEDLEY 87 

With rumour of Prince Arac hard at hand. 
We left her by the woman, and without 
Found the gray kings at °parle : and " Look you " cried 
My father, " that our compact be fulfill'd : in 

You have spoilt this child ; she laughs at you and man : 
She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him : 
But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire ; 
She yields, or war." 

Then Gama turn'd to me . 
" We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time 
With our strange girl : and yet they say that still 
You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large : 
How say you, war or not ? " 

" Not war, if possible, 
king," I said, " lest from the abuse of war, 120 

The desecrated shrine, the trampled °year, 
The smouldering homestead, and the household flower 
Torn from the lintel — all the common wrong — 
A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her 
Three times a monster : now she "lightens scorn 
At him that mars her plan, but then would hate 
(And every voice she talk'd with ratify it, 
And every face she look'd on justify it) 
The general foe. More soluble is this knot, 
By gentleness than war. I want her love. 130 



88 THE PRINCESS [V 

What were I nighei this altho' we dash'd 

Your cities into °shards with catapults, 

She would not love; —or brought her chaiird, a slave, 

The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord, 

Not ever would she love ; but brooding turn 

The book of scorn, till all my flitting chance 

Were caught within the record of her wrongs, 

And crush*d to death: and rather, Sire, than this 

1 would the old God of war himself were dead, 

Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, 140 

Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck, 

Or like an old-world "mammoth bulk'd in ice, 

Not to be molten out." 

And roughly spake 
My father, "Tut, you know them not, the girls. 
Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think 
That °idiot legend credible. Look you, Sir! 
Man is the hunter ; woman is his game : 
The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, 
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins; 
They love us for it, and we ride them down. 150 

Wheedling and siding with them ! Out ! for shame! 
Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them 
As he that does the thing they dare not do, 
Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes 



V] A MEDLEY 89 

With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in 

Among the women, snares them by the score 

Flatter'd and fluster'd, wins, tho' dash'd with death 

He reddens what he kisses : thus I won 

Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, 

Worth winning ; but this firebrand — gentleness 160 

To such as her ! if Cyril spake her true, 

To catch a dragon in a "cherry uet, 

To trip a tigress with a gossamer, 

Were wisdom to it." 

" Yea but Sire," I cried, 
" Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier ? Xo : 
What dares not Ida do that she should prize 
The soldier ? I beheld her, when she rose 
The yesternight, and storming in extremes, 
Stood for her cause* and flung defiance down 
°G-agelike to man, and had not shuim'd the death, 170 
Xo, not the soldier's : yet I hold her, king, 
True woman : but you clash them all in one, 
That have as many differences as we. 
The violet varies from the lily as far 
As oak from elm : one loves the soldier, one 
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that, 
And some unworthily ; their sinless faith, 
A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty, 



90 THE PRINCESS [V 

Glorifying clown and °satyr; whence they need 

More breadth of culture : is not Ida right ? 180 

They worth it ? truer to the law within ? 

Severer in the logic of a life ? 

Twice as magnetic to sweet influences 

Of earth and heaven ? and she of whom you speak, 

My mother, looks as whole as some serene 

Creation minted in the golden moods 

Of sovereign artists ; not a thought, a touch, 

But pure as lines of green that streak the white 

Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves ; I say, 

Not like the °piebald miscellany, man, 190 

Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire, 

But whole and one: and take them all-in-all, 

Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind, 

As truthful, much thai Ida claims as right 

Had ne'er been °mooted, but as frankly theirs 

As dues of Nature. To our point: not war: 

Lest I lose all." 

" Nay. nay. you spake but sense " 
Said Gama. " We remember love ourself 
In our sweet youth ; we did not rate him then 
This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows. 200 

You talk almost like Ida: she can talk ; 
And there is something in it as you say: 



V] A MEDLEY 91 

But you talk kindlier : we esteem you for it. — 

He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, 

I would lie had our daughter : for the rest, 

Our own detention, why, the causes weigh'd, 

Fatherly fears — you used us courteously — 

We would do much to gratify your Prince — 

"We pardon it ; and for your ingress here 

Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land, 210 

You did but come as goblins in the night, 

Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head, 

Nor burnt the grange, nor °buss'd the milking-maid, 

Nor robb'd the farmer of his bowl of cream : 

But let your Prince (our royal word upon it, 

He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, 

And speak with Arac: Arac's word is thrice 

As ours with Ida : something ma3 r be done — 

I know not what — and ours shall see us friends. 

You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will, 220 

Follow us : who knows ? we four may build some 

plan 
Foursquare to opposition." 

Here he reach'd 
White hands of farewell to my sire, who growl'd 
An answer which, half-muffled in his beard, 
Let so much out as gave us leave to go. 



92 THE PRINCESS [V 

Then rode we with the old king across the lawns 
Beneath huge trees, a thousand °rings of Spring 
In every bole, a song on every spray 
Of birds that piped their °Valentines, and woke 
Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 230 

In the old king's ears, who promised help, and oozed 
All o'er with honey'd answer as we rode 
And blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy dews 
Gather'd by night and peace, with each light air 
On our mailM heads : but other thoughts than Peace 
Burnt in us, when we saw the embattled squares. 
And squadrons of the Prince, trampling the flowers 
With clamour: for among them rose a cry 
As if to greet the king; they made a halt; 
The horses yell'd ; they clash'd their arms; the drum 
Beat; merrily-blowing shrilPd tin 1 martial fife; 241 
And in the blast and bray of the long horn 
And serpent-throated bugle, undulated 
The banner: anon to meet us lightly pranced 
Three captains out; nor ever had I seen 
Such °thews of men: the midmost and the highest 
Was Arac: all about his motion clung 
The shadow of his sister, as the beam 
Of the East, that play'd upon them, made them glance 
Like those three stars of the airy °Giant's zone, 250 



V] A MEDLEY 93 

That glitter burnish'd by the frosty dark ; 

And as the fiery °Sirius alters hue, 

And bickers into red and emerald, shone 

Their °morions, wash'd with morning, as they came. 

And I that prated peace, when first I heard 
War-music, felt the blind wildbeast of force. 
Whose home is in the sinews of a man, 
Stir in me as to strike : then took the king 
His three broad sons ; with now a wandering hand 
And now a pointed finger, told them all : 260 

A common light of smiles at our disguise 
Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest 
Had labour'd down within his ample lungs, 
The genial giant, Arac, roll'd himself 
Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words. 

"Our land invaded, °'sdeath ! and he himself 
Your captive, yet my father wills not war : 
And, 'sdeath ! myself, what care I, war or no ? 
But then this question of your troth remains : 
And there's a downright honest meaning in her ; 270 
She flies too high, she flies too high ! and yet 
She ask'd but space and fairplay for her scheme ; 
She prest and prest it on me — I myself, 



94 THE PRim ES& [ V 

What know I of these things ? but. life and soul ! 
I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs ; 
I say she flies too high, 'sdeath ! what of that ? 
I take her for the flower of womankind, 
And so I often told her, right or wrong, 
And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves. 
And, right or wrong, I care not : this is all. 
I stand upon her side : she made me swear it — 
•Sdeath — and with solemn rites by candle-light— 
Swear by r St. something — I forget her name — 
Her that talk'd down the fifty wisest men ; 
.-as a princess too ; and so I swore. 

3 is all; she will not : waive your claim : 
If nor. : jhten field, what else, ar on 

Decides ir, 'sdeath: against my father's will.'' 

I lagg'd in answer loth to render up 
My precontract, and loth by brainless war 290 

T jleave the rift of difference deeper yet ; 

Till one of those two brothers, half aside 

And fingering at the hair about his lip, 
To prick us on to combat •• Like to like ! 
The woman's garment hid the woman's heart." 
A taunt that clench'd his purpose like a blow ! 
For hery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff. 



V] A MEL LEY 95 

And sharp I answered, touch'd upon the point 
Where idle boys are °cowards to their shame, 299 

" Decide it here : why not ? we are three to thie 

Then spake the third " But three to three ? no more ? 
Xo more, and in our noble sister's cause ? 
More, more, for honour : every captain waits 
Hungry for honour, angry for his king. 
More, more, some fifty on a side, that each 
May breathe himself, and quick ! by overthrow 
Of these or those, the question settled die.*' 
ik Yea." answer'd I. - for this wild wreath of air, 
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest 
Foam of men's deeds — this honour, if ye will. 513 

It needs must be for honour if at all : 
Since, what decision ? if we fail, we fail, 
And if we win. we fail : she would not keep 
Her compact."' •• 'Sdeath ! but we will send to b 
Said Arac, " worthy reasons why she should 
Bide by this issue : let our missive thn '. 
And you shall have her answer by the word.*' 

" Boys! " shriek'd the old king, but vainlier than a 
hen 
To her = false daughters in the pool ; for none 



96 THE PRINCESS [V 

Regarded ; neither seemM there more to say : 320 

Back rode we to my father's camp, and found 

He thrice had sent a herald to the gates, 

To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim, 

Or by denial °flush her babbling wells 

With her own people's life: three times he went: 

The first, he blew and blew, but none appear'd: 

He batter'd at the doors ; none came : the next, 

An awful voice within had warnM him thence : 

The third, and those eight daughters of the plough 

Came sallying thro' the gates, and caught his hair, 

And so belabour'd him on rib and cheek 331 

They made him wild: not less one glance he caught 

Thro' open doors of Ida station'd there 

Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm 

Tho' compass'd by two armies and the noise 

Of arms ; and standing like a stately Pine 

Set in a cataract on an island-crag, 

"When storm is on the heights, and right and left 

Suek'd from the dark heart of the long hills roll 

The torrents, dash'd to the vale : and yet her will 

Bred will in me to overcome it or fall. 341 

But when I told the king that I was pledged 
To fight in tourney for my bride, he clash'd 



V] A MEDLEY 97 

His iron palms together with a cry ; 

Himself would tilt it out among the lads : 

But overborne by all his bearded lords 

With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce 

He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur : 

And many a bold knight started up in heat, 

And sware to combat for my claim till death. 350 

r 

All on this side the palace ran the field 
Flat to the garden-wall : and likewise here, 
Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, 
Acolumn'd entry shone and marble stairs, 
And great bronze °valves, emboss'd with °Tomyris 
And what she did to Cyrus after fight, 
But now fast barr'd : so here upon the flat 

/ All that long morn the lists were hammer'd up, 
And all that morn the heralds to and fro, 
With message and defiance, went and came ; 360 

Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand, 

, But shaken here and there, and rolling words 
Oration-like. I kiss'd it and I read. 

" brother, you have known the pangs we felt, 
What heats of indignation when we heard 
Of those that iron-cramp'd their women's feet ; 



98 THE PRINCESS [V 

Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride 

Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a °scourge; 

Of °living hearts that crack within the fire 

Where smoulder their dead °despots ; and of those, — 

Mothers, — that, all "prophetic pity, fling 371 

Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops 

The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart 

Made for all noble motion : and I saw 

That equal baseness lived in sleeker times v 

With smoother men : the old leaven leaven'd all : 

Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights, 

No woman named : therefore I set my face 

Against all men, and lived but for mine own. 

Far off from men I built a fold for them : 380 

I stored it full of rich °memorial: 

I fenced it round with gallant institutes, 

And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey 

And prosper d ; till a rout of saucy boys 

Brake on us at our books, and marr'd our peace, 

Mask'd like our maids, blustering I know not what 

Of insolence and love, some pretext held 

Of baby troth, invalid, since my will 

Seal'd not the bond — the striplings ! — for their sport ! — 

I tamed my leopards : shall I not tame these ? 390 

Or you ? or I ? for since you think me touch'd 



V] A MEDLEY 99 

In honour — what, I would not aught of false — 
Is not our cause pure ? and whereas I know 
Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood 
You draw from, fight ; you failing, I abide 
What end soever : fail you will not. Still 
Take not his life : he risk'd 11 for my own ; 
His mother lives : yet whatsoe'er you do, 
Fight and fight well; strike and strike home. 
f dear 
Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you 4 co 

The sole men to be mingled with our cause, 
The sole men we shall prize in the aftertime, 
Your very armour hallow'd, and your statues 
Rear'd, sung to, when, this °gad-fly brush'd aside, 
We plant a solid foot into the °Time, 
And mould a generation strong to move 
With claim on claim from right to right, till she 
Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself ; 
And Knowledge in our own land make her free, 
And, ever following those two crowned twins, 4 io 

i Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain 
Of freedom broadcast °over all that orbs 
Between the Northern and the Southern morn." 

Then came a postscript dash'd across the rest. 



100 THE PRIXCESS [V 

" See that there be no traitors in your camp : 

We seem a nest of traitors — none to trust 

Since our arms fail'd — this °Egypt-plague of men ! 

Almost our maids were better at their homes, 

Than thus man-girdled here : indeed I think 

Our chiefest comfort is the little child 420 

Of one unworthy mother ; which she left : 

She shall not have it back : the child shall grow 

To prize the authentic mother of her mind. 

I took it for an hour in mine own bed 

This morning : there the tender orphan hands 

Felt at my heart, and seem'd to charm from thence 

The wrath I nursed against the world : farewell." 

I ceased; he said, " Stubborn, but she may sit 
Opon a king's right hand in thunderstorms, 
And breed up warriors ! Sec now, tho' yourself 430 
Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs 
That swallow common sense, the spindling king, 
This Gama swamp'd in lazy tolerance. 
When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up, 
And topples down the scales ; but this is fixt 
As are the roots of earth and base of all ; 
Man for the field and woman for the hearth : 
Man for the sword and for the needle she : 



V] A MEDLEY 101 

Man with the head and woman with the heart : 

Man to command and woman to obey ; 440 

All else confusion. Look you ! the °gray mare 

Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills 

From tile to scullery, and her small goodman 

Shrinks in his arm-chair while the fires of Hell 

Mix with his hearth : out you — she's yet a colt — 

Take, break her : strongly groom'd and straitly curb'd 

She might not rank with those detestable 

That let the °bantling scald at home, and brawl 

Their rights or wrongs like °potherbs in the street. 

They say she's comely ; there's the fairer chance : 450 

/ like her none the less for rating at her ! 

Besides, the woman wed is not as we, 

But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace 

Of twins may weed her of her foil}'. Boy, 

The bearing and the training of a child 

Is woman's wisdom." 

Thus the hard old king : 
I took my leave, for it was nearly noon : 
I pored upon her letter which I held, 
And ou the little clause " take not his life : " 
I mused on that °wild morning in the woods, 460 

And on the "Follow, follow, thou shalt win : " 
I thought on all the wrathful king had said, 



102 THE PRINCESS [V 

And how the strange betrothment was to end : 

Then I remember'd that burnt sorcerer's curse 

That one should fight with shadows and should fall ; 

And like a flash the weird affection came : 

King, camp and college turn'd to hollow shows ; 

I seem'd to move in old memorial tilts, 

And doing battle with forgotten ghosts, 

To dream myself the shadow of a dream : 470 

And ere 1 woke it was the point of noon, 

The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed 

We enter'd in, and waited, fifty there 

Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared 

At the barrier like a wild horn in a land 

Of echoes, and a moment, and once more 

The trumpet, and again: at which the storm 

of galloping hoofs °bare on the ridge of spears 

Aid riders front to front, until they closed 

In conflict with the crash of shivering points, 480 

And thunder. Vet it seem'd a dream, I dream'd 

Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed, 

And into fiery splinters leapt the lance, 

And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. 

Part sat like rocks : part reel'd but kept their seats : 

Part roll'd on the earth and rose again and drew : 

Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. Down 



V] A MEDLEY 103 

From those two bulks at Arac's side, and down 

From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail, 

The large blows rain'd, as here and everywhere 490 

He rode the °mellay, lord of the ringing lists, 

And all the plain, — brand, mace, and shaft, and shield — 

Shock'd, like an iron-clanging anvil bang'd 

With hammers ; till I thought, can this be he 

From Gama's dwarfish loins ? if this be so, 

The mother makes us most — and in my dream 

I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front 

Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes, 

And highest, among the statues, statue-like, 

Between a cymbal'd °Miriam and a Jael, 500 

With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, 

A single band of gold about her hair, 

Like a Saint's glory up in heaven : but she 

No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — 

Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight, 

Yea, let her see me fall ! with that I drave 

Among the thickest and bore down a Princs, 

Aiad Cyril, one. Yea, let me make my dream 

All that I would. But that large-moulded man, 

His visage all agrin as at a wake, 510 

Made at me thro,' the press, and, staggering back 

With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came 



104 THE PRINCESS [VI 

As comes a °pillar of electric cloud. 

Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains, 

And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes 

On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits. 

And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth 

Reels, and the herdsmen cry ; for everything 

Gave way before him: only Florian, he 

That loved me closer than his own right eye, 520 

Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down: 

And Cyril seeing it, push'd against the Prince, 

With Psyche's colour round his helmet, tough, 

Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms; 

But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 

And threw him: last I spurr'd; 1 felt my veins 

Stretch with fierce licit ; a moment hand to hand, 

And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung, 

Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanced, 

I did but sheaf a feather, and dream and truth 530 

Flow'd from me; darkness closed me: and 1 fell. 



VI 



Home they brought her warrior dead 
She nor swoon'd, nor ntter'd cry: 

All her maidens, watching, said* 
•• She must weep or she will die." 



VI] A MEDLEY 105 

Then they praised him, soft and low, 

Call'd him worthy to he loved, 
Truest friend and noblest foe : 

Yet she neither spoke nor moved. 

Stole a maiden from her place, 

Lightly to the warrior stept, 
Took the face-cloth from the face : 

Yet she neither moved nor wept. 

Rose a nurse of ninety years, 

Set his child upon her knee — 
Like summer tempest came her tears — 

" Sweet my child, I live for thee." 



My °dream had never died or lived again. 
As in some mystic middle state I lay; 
Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard : 
- Tho\ if I saw not, yet they told me all 
So often that I speak as having seen. 

For so it seem'd, or so they said to me. 
/ That all things grew more tragic and more strange; 
That when our side was vanquish'd and my cause 
For ever lost, there went up a great cry, 
l The Prince is slain. My father heard and ran 
1 In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque 



106 THE PRINCESS [VI 

And grovell'd on my body, and after him 
Came Psyche, sorrowing for Agla'ia. 

But high upon the palace Ida stood 
"With Psyche's babe in arm : there on the roofs 
Like that great °dame of Lapidoth she sang. 

°"Our enemies have fall'ii, have fall'n : the seed, 
The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark, 
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a hulk 
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side 20 

A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun. 

"Our enemies have fall'ii, have fall'ii : they came; 
The leaves were wet with women's tears: they heard 
A noise of songs they would not understand : 
They mark'd it with the °red cross to the fall, 
And would have strown it, and are fall'n themselves. 

" Our enemies have fall'n. have fall'n : they came, 
The woodmen with their axes: lo the tree! 
But we will make it faggots for the hearth, 
And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, 30 

And boats and bridges for the use of men. 

"Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they struck; 
With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew 
There dwelt an iron nature in the grain : 
The glittering axe was broken in their arms, 
Their arms were shatter'd to the shoulder blade- 



VI] A MEDLEY 107 

" Our enemies have fall'n, but this shall grow 
A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth 
Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power: aud roll'd 
With music in the growing breeze of Time, 40 

The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs 
Shall move the stony bases of the world. 

"And now, maids, behold our sanctuary 
Is violate, our laws broken : fear we not 
To break them more in their behoof, whose arms 
Champion'd our cause and won it with a day 
°Blanch'd in our annals, and perpetual feast, 
When dames and heroines of the golden year 
Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of °Spring, 
To rain an April of ovation round 50 

Their statues, borne aloft, the three : but come, 
We will be liberal, since our rights are won. 
Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, 
111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 
The brethren of our blood and cause, that there 
Lie bruised and maim'd, the tender ministries 
Of female hands and hospitality."' 

She spoke, and with the babe \*et in her arms, 
Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led 
A hundred maids in train across the Park. 60 

Some cowl'd, and some bare-headed, on they came, 



108 THE PRINCESS [VI 

Their feet in flowers, her loveliest: by them went 

The enamour d air sighing, and on their curls 

From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, 

And over them the tremulous isles of light . 

Slided, they moving under shade : but Blanche 

At distance follow'd : so the} 7 came : anon 

Thro' open held into the lists they wound 

Timorously ; and as the leader of the herd 

That holds a stately °f ret work to the Sun, 7 o 

And follow'd up by a hundred airy docs 

Steps with a lender fool, light as on air, 

The lovely, lordly creature floated on 

To where her wounded brethren lay ; there stay'd ; 

Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — and prest 

Their hands, and call'd them dear deliverers, 

And happy warriors, and immortal names, 

And said " You shall not lie in the tents but here, 

And nursed by those for whom you fought, and 

served 
With female hands and hospitality." So 

Then, whether moved by this, or was it chance, 
She past my way. Up started from my side 
The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye, 
Silent; but when she saw me lying stark, 



VI] A MEDLEY 109 

Dishelm'd and mute, and motionlessly pale, 

< !old ev'n to her, she sigh'd ; and when she saw 

The haggard father's face and reverend beard 

Of ° grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood 

Of his own son, shudder'd, a twitch of pain 

Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead past 90 

A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said : 

" He saved my life : my brother slew him for it." 

No more : at which the king in bitter scorn 

Drew from my neck the °painting and the tress, 

And held them up : she saw them, and a day 

Rose from the distance on her memory, 

When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress 

With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche : 

And then once more she look'd at my pale face : 

Till understanding all the foolish work 100 

Of °.Fancy, and the bitter close of all, 

Her iron will was broken in her mind ; 

Her noble heart was molten in her breast; 

She bow'd, she set the child on the earth ; she laid 

A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 

" O Sire," she said, " he lives : he is not dead : 

let me have him with my brethren here 

In our own palace : we will tend on him 

Like one of these ; if so. by any means, 



110 THE PRINCESS [VI 

To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make no 
Our progress falter to the woman's goal." 

She said : but at the happy word " he lives " 
My father stoop'd, re-father 'd o'er my wounds. 
So those two foes above my fallen life, 
With brow to brow like night and evening mixt 
Their dark and gray, while Psyche ever stole 
A little nearer, till the babe that by us, 
Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden °brede, 
Lay like a new-faH'n meteor on the grass, 
Uncared for, spied its mother and began 120 

A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance 
Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms 
And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal 
Brook'd not, but clamouring out " Mine — mine — not 

yours, 
It is not yours, but mine : give me the child " 
Ceased all on tremble : piteous was the cry : 
So stood the unhappy mother open-mouth 'd, 
And turn'd each face her way : wan was her cheek 
With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn, 
Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye, 130 

And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and half 
The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst 



VI] A MEDLEY 111 

The laces toward her babe ; but she nor cared 

Nor knew it, clamouring on, till Ida heard, 

Look'd up, and rising slowly from me, stood 

Erect and silent, striking with her glance 

The mother, me, the child ; but he that lay 

Beside us, Cyril, batter'd as he was, 

Trail' d himself up on one knee : then he drew 

Her robe to meet his lips, and down she look'd 140 

At the arm'd man sideways, pitying as it seem'd 

Or self-involved ; but when she °learnt his face, 

Remembering his ill-omen'd song, arose 

Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him grew 

Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand 

When the tide ebbs in sunshine, and he said : 

" fair and strong and terrible ! Lioness 
That with your long locks play the Lion's mane ! 
But Love and Nature, these are two more terri- 
ble 
And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks, 150 

We vanquished, you the Victor of your will. 
What would you more ? give her the child ! remain 
Orb'd in your isolation : he is dead, 
Or all as dead : henceforth we let yen be : 
Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 



112 THE PRINCESS [VI 

Lest, where you seek the common love of these, 

The common hate with the revolving wheel 

Should drag you down, and some great °Xemesis 

Break from a darkened future, crown'd with fire, 

And tread you out for ever: but howsoe'er 160 

Fix'd in yourself, never in your own arms 

To hold your own, deny not hers to her, 

Give her the child ! <> if. I say. you keep 

One pulso that beats true woman, it' you loved 

The breast thai fed or arm that dandled you, 

Or own one "porl of sense not tlint to prayer, 

Give her the child! or if you scorn to lay it. 

Yourself, in hands so lately claspt with yours. 

Or speak to her. your dearest, her one fault 

The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill, 170 

Give me it: / will give it her." 

I [e said : 
At first her eye with slow dilation roll'd 
Dry flame, she listening; after sank and sank 
And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt 
Full on the child ; she took it: "Pretty bud ! 
Lily of the vale ! half-open'd bell of the woods! 
Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world 
Of traitorous friend and broken system made 
No purple in the distance, mystery, 



1 90 



VI] A MEDLEY 113 

Pledge of a °love not to be mine, farewell; 180 

These men are hard upon us as of old, 

We two must part : and yet how fain was I 

To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think 

I might be something to thee, when I felt 

Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast 

In the °dead prime : but may thy mother prove 

As true to thee as false, false, false to me ! 

And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it 

Gentle as freedom " — here she kiss'd it: then — 

" All good go with thee ! take it Sir," and so 

Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands, 

Who turn'd half-round to Psyche as she sprang 

To meet it, with an eye that swum in thanks ; 

Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot, 

And hugg'd and never hugg'd it close enough, 

And in her hunger mouth'd and mumbled it, 

And hid her bosom with it ; after that 

Put on more calm and added suppliantly : 

" We two were friends : I go to mine own land 
For ever: find some other : as for me 
I scarce am lit for your great plans: yet speak to 

me, 
Say one soft word and let me part forgiven." 



200 



114 THE PRINCESS [VI 

But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. 
Then Arac. "Ida — 'sdeath ! you blame the man; 
You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard 
Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me ! 
I am your warrior : I and mine have fought 
Your battle : kiss her ; take her hand, she weeps : 
'Sdeath ! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see 
it." 

But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground, 210 

And reddening in the furrows of his chin, 
And moved beyond his custom, Gama said : 



" I've heard that there is iron in the blood, 
And I believe it. Not one word ? not one ? 
Whence drew you this steel temper ? not from me, 
Not from your mother, now a saint with saints. 
She said you had a heart — I heard her say it — 
' Our Ida has a heart ' — just ere she died — 
' But see that some one with authority 
Be near her still ' and I — I sought for one — 2: 

All people said she had authority — 
The Lady Blanche : much profit ! Not one word ; 
No ! tho' your father sues : see how you stand 
Stiff as °Lot's wife, and all the good knights maim'd, 



VI] A MEDLEY 115 

I trust that there is no one hurt to death, 

For your wild whim : and was it then for this, 

AVas it for this we gave our palace up, 

Where we withdrew from summer heats and state, 

And had our wine and chess beneath the planes, 

And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, 230 

Ere you were born to vex us ? Is it kind ? 

Speak to her I say : is this not she of whom, 

When first she came, all flush'd you said to me 

Now had you got a friend of your own age, 

Now could you share your thought ; now should men 

see 
Two women faster welded in one love 
Than pairs of wedlock ; she you walk'd with, she 
You talk'd with, whole nights long, up in the tower, 
Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth, 
And right ascension, Heaven knows what ; and now 
A word, but one, one little kindly word, 241 

Not one to spare her : out upon you, flint ! 
You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; nay, 
You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one? 
You will not ? well — no heart have you, or such 
As fancies like the vermin in a nut 
Have fretted all to dust and bitterness." 
So said the small king moved bevond his wont. 



116 THE PRINCESS [VI 

But Ida stood nor spoke, drain'd of her force 
By many a varying influence and so long. 250 

Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor wept : 
Her head a little bent ; and on her mouth 
A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon 
In a still water : then brake out my sire, 
Lifting his grim head from my wounds. " you, 
Woman, whom we thought woman even now, 
And were half foolxl to let you tend our son, 
Because he might have wish'd it — but we see 
The accomplice of your madness unforgiven, 
And think that you might mix his draught with death, 
Y\ 'hen your skies change again : the rougher hand 
Is safer : on to the tents : take up the Prince." 262 

He rose, and while each ear was prick'd to attend 
A tempest, thro' the cloud that dimmM her broke 
A genial warmth and light once more, and shone 
Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. 

" Come hither, 
Psyche," she cried out. ki embrace me, come, 
Quick while I melt ; make reconcilement sure 
With one that cannot keep her mind an hour: 
Come to the hollow heart they slander so ! 270 

Kiss and be friends, like children being chid ! 



VI] A MEDLEY 117 

/ seem no more : I want forgiveness too : 

I should have had to do with none but maids, 

That have no links with men. Ah false but dear, 

Dear traitor, too much loved, why ? — why ? — Yet see, 

Before these kings we embrace yon yet once more 

With all forgiveness, all oblivion, 

And trust, not love, you less. 

And now, sire, 
Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him, 
Like mine own brother. For my debt to him, 2S0 

This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it ; 
Taunt me no more : yourself and yours shall have 
Free °adit ; we will scatter all our maids 
Till happier times each to her proper hearth : 
What use to keep them here — now ? grant my prayer. 
Help, father, brother, help ; speak to the king : 
Thaw this male nature to some touch of that 
Which kills me with myself, and drags me down 
From my fixt height to mob me up with all 
The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 290 

Poor weakling ev'n as they are." 

Passionate tears 
Follow'd : the king replied not: Cyril said; 
"Your brother. Lady, — Florian, — ask for him 
( >f your great head — for he is wounded too — 



118 THE PRINCESS [VI 

That you may tend upon him with the Prince." 

" Ay so," said Ida with a bitter smile, 

" Our laws are broken : let him enter too." 

Then Violet, °she that sang the mournful song, 

And had a cousin tumbled on the plain, 

Petition'd too for him. " Ay so," she said, 300 

u I stagger in the stream : I cannot keep 

My heart an eddy from the brawling hour : 

We break our laws with ease, but let it be." 

" Ay so ? " said Blanche : " Amazed am I to hear 

Your Highness : but your Highness breaks with ease 

The law your Highness did not make : 'twas I. 

I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, 

And block'd them out ; but these men came to woo 

Your Highness — verily I think to win." 

So she, and turn' d askance a wintry eye : 310 

But Ida with a voice, that like a bell 
Toll'd by an earthquake in a trembling tower, 
Rang ruin, answer'd full of grief and scorn. 

" Fling our doors wide ! all, all, not one, but all, 
Not only lie, but by my mother's soul, 
Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, 
Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit, 



VI] A MEDLEY 119 

Till the storm die ! but had you stood by us, 
The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base 
Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too, 320 
But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes. 
We brook no further insult but are gone." 

She turn'd ; the very nape of her white neck 
Was rosed with indignation : but the Prince 
Her brother came ; the king her father charm'd 
Her wounded soul with words : nor did mine own 
Eefuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. 

Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare 
Straight to the doors : to them the doors gave way 
Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shriek'd 330 

The virgin marble under iron heels : 
And on they moved and gain'd the hall, and there 
Rested: but great the crush was, and each base, 
To left and right, of those tall columns drown'd 
In silken fluctuation and the swarm 
Of female whisperers : at the further end 
Was Ida by the throne, the two great °cats 
Close by her, like supporters on a shield, 
Bow-back'd with fear : but in the centre stood 
The common men with rolling eyes ; amazed 340 



120 THE PRIX CESS [VI 

They glared upon the women, and aghast 
The women stared at these, all silent, save 
When armour clash'd or jingled, while the day, 
Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot 
A flying splendour out of brass and steel, 
That o'er the statues leapt from head to head, 
Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm, 
Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame, 
And now and then an echo started up, 
And shuddering fled from room to room, and died 

Of fright in far apartments. 

Then the voice 350 

Of Ida sounded, issuing Ordinance : 

And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' 

The long-laid galleries past a hundred doors 

To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 

To languid limbs and sickness ; left me in it ; 

And others otherwhere they laid : and all 

That afternoon a sound arose of hoof 

And chariot, many a maiden passing home 

Till happier times ; but some were left of those 360 

Held sagest, and the great lords out and in, 

From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, 

AValk'd at their will, and everything was changed. 



VII] A MEDLEY 121 

VII 

Ask me no more : the moon may draw the sea ; 
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape 
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape ; 

But O too fond ; when have I answer'd thee? 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more : what answer should I give ? 
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye : 
,,•* Yet, O niy friend, I will not have thee die ! 

Ask me no more, lest I should hid thee live ; 
Ask me no more. 

Ask me no more : thy fate and mine are seal'd : 
I strove against the stream and all in vain : 
Let the great river take me to the main : 

No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield ; 
Ask me no more. 

j So was their sanctuary violated, 

So their fair college tnrn'd to hospital ; 
At first with all confusion : by and by 
Sweet order lived again with other laws : 
A kindlier influence reign'd ; and everywhere 

/ Low voices with the ministering hand 

Hung round the sick : the maidens came, they talk'd, 

They sang, they read : till she not fair began 

To gather light, and she that was, became 

Her former beauty treble ; and to and fro 10 



122 THE PRINCESS [VII 

With books, with flowers, with Angel offices, 
Like creatures native unto gracious act, 
And in their own clear element, they moved. 

But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, 
And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. 
Old studies fail'd ; seldom she spoke : but oft 
Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours 
On that disastrous °leaguer, swarms of men 
Darkening her female field : °void was her use, 
And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 20 

O'er hind and main, and sees a great black cloud 
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night, 
Blot out the slope of sea from °verge to shore, 
And suck the blinding splendour from the sand, 
And quenching lake by lake and °tarn by tarn 
Expunge the world : so fared she gazing there ; 
So blacken 'd all her world in secret, blank 
And waste it seem'd and vain; till down she 

came, 
And found fair peace once more among the sick. 

And twilight dawn'd ; and morn by morn the lark 
Shot up and shrill'd in flickering °gyres, but I 31 

Lay silent in the muffled cage of life : 



VII] A MEDLEY 123 

And twilight gloom'd ; and broader-grown the 

bowers 
Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, 
Star after star, arose and fell ; but I, 
Deeper than those weird doubts could reach me, lay 
Quite sunder'd from the moving Universe, 
Nor knew what eye was on me, nor the hand 
That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep. 

But Psyche tended Florian : with her oft, 4 o 

Melissa came ; for Blanche had gone, but left 
Her child among us, willing she should keep 
Court-favour : here and there the small bright head, 
A light of healing, glanced about the couch, 
Or thro' the parted silks the tender face 
Peep'd, shining in upon the wounded man 
With blush and smile, a medicine in themselves 
To wile the length from languorous hours, and draw 
The sting from pain ; nor seem'd it strange that soon 
He rose up whole, and those fair °charities 50 

Join'd at her side ; nor stranger seem'd that hearts 
So gentle, so employ'd, should close in love, 
Than when two dewdrops on the petal shake 
To the same sweet air, and tremble deeper down, 
And slip at once all-fragrant into one. 



124 THE PRINCESS [VII 

Less prosperously the second suit obtain'd 
At first with Psyche. Not tho' Blanche had sworn 
That after that dark night among the fields 
She needs must wed him for her own good name ; 
Not tho' he °built upon the babe restored ; 60 

Nor tho' she liked him, yielded she, but fear'd 
To incense the Head once more ; till on a day 
When Cyril pleaded, Ida came behind 
Seen but of Psyche : on her foot she hung 
A moment, and she heard, at which her face 
A little flush'd, and she past on ; but each 
Assumed from thence a half-consent involved 
In stillness, plighted troth, and were at peace. 

Nor only these : Love in the sacred halls 
Held carnival at will, and flying struck 70 

With showers of random sweet on maid and man. 
Nor did her father cease to press my claim, 
Nor did mine own, now reconciled ; nor yet 
Did those twin brothers, risen again and whole; 
Nor Arac, satiate with his victory. 

But I lay still, and with me oft she sat : 
Then came a change ; for sometimes I would catch 
Her hand in wild delirium, gripe it hard. 



VII] A MEDLEY 125 

And fling it like a viper off, and shriek 

" Yon are not Ida ; " clasp it once again, So 

And call her Ida, tho' I knew her not, 

And call her sweet, as if in irony, 

And call her hard and cold which seem'd a trnth : 

And still she fear'd that I should lose my mind, 

And often she believed that I should die : 

Till out of long frustration of her care, 

And pensive tendance in the all-weary noons, 

And watches in the °dead, the dark, when clocks 

Throbb'd thunder thro' the palace floors, or call'd 

On flying Time from all their silver tongues — go 

And out of memories of her kindlier days, 

And sidelong glances at my father's grief, 

And at the happy lovers heart in heart — 

And out of hauntings of my spoken love, 

And lonely listenings to my mutter'd dream, 

And often feeling of the helpless hands, 

And wordless broodings on the wasted cheek — 

From all a closer interest flourish'd up, 

Tenderness touch by touch, and last, to these, 

Love, like an Alpine harebell hung with tears ioo 

By some cold morning glacier; frail at first 

And feeble, all unconscious of itself, 

But such as gather'd colour day by day. 



126 THE PRINCESS [VII 

Last I woke sane, but well-nigh close to death 
For weakness : it was evening : silent light 
Slept on the painted walls, wherein were wrought 
Two grand designs ; for on one side arose 
The women up in wild revolt, and storm'd 
At the °Oppian law. Titanic shapes, they cramm'd 
The forum, and half-crush'd among the rest no 

A dwarf -like Cato cower'd. On the other side 
°Hortensia spoke against the tax ; behind, 
A train of dames : by °axe and eagle sat, 
With all their foreheads drawn in Roman scowls, 
And half the °wolf s-milk curdled in their veins, 
The fierce triumvirs ; and before them paused 
Hortensia pleading : angry was her face. 

I saw the forms : I knew not where I was : 
They did but look like hollow shows ; nor more 
Sweet Ida : palm to palm she sat : the dew 120 

Dwelt in her eyes, and softer all her shape 
And rounder seem'd : I moved : I sigh'd : a touch 
Came round my wrist, and tears upon my hand : 
Then all for languor and self-pity ran 
Mine down my face, and with what life I had, 
And like a flower that cannot all unfold, 
So drench'd it is with tempest, to the sun, 



VII] A MEDLEY VI! 

Yet, as it may, turns toward him, I on her 
Fixt my faint eyes, and utter'd whisperingly : 

" If you be, what I think you, some sweet dream, 
I would but ask you to fulfil yourself : 131 

But if you be that Ida whom I knew, 
I ask you nothing: only, if a dream, 
Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night. 
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die." 

I could no more, but lay like one in trance, 
That hears his burial talk'd of by his friends, 
And cannot speak, nor move, nor make one sign, 
But lies and dreads his doom. She turn'd ; she paused ; 
She stoop'd ; and out of languor leapt a cr}^ ; 140 

Leapt fiery Passion from the brinks of death ; 
And I believed that in the living world 
My spirit closed with Ida's at the lips ; 
Till back I fell, and from mine arms she rose 
Glowing all over noble shame ; and all 
Her falser self slipt from her like a robe, 
And left her woman, lovelier in her mood 
Than in her mould °that other, when she came 
From barren deeps to conquer all with love ; 
And down the streaming crystal clropt ; and she 150 



128 THE PRINCESS [VII 

Far-fleeted by the purple island-sides, 
Naked, a double light in air and wave, 
To meet her Graces, where they deck'cl her out 
For worship without end ; nor end of mine, 
Stateliest, for thee ! but mute she glided forth, 
Nor glanced behind her, and I sank and slept, 
Fill'd thro' and thro' with Love, a happy sleep. 

Deep in the night I woke : she, near me, held 
A volume of the Poets of her land : 
There to herself, all in low tones, she read. 160 

" Now sloops the crimson petal, now the white; 
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; 
Nor winks the sold fin in the porphyry font: 
The tire-rly wakens : waken thou with me. 

" Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, " 
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. 

" Now lies the Earth all °Danae to the stars, 
And all thy heart lies open unto me. 

" Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves 
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. 170 

" Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, 
And slips into the bosom of the lake : 
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip 
Into my bosom and be lost in mo." 



VII] A MEDLEY 129 

I heard her turn the page ; she found a small 
Sweet Idyl, and once more, as low, she read : 

" Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: 
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), 
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills? 
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease tSo 

To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, 
To sit a star upon the °sparkling spire; 
And come, for Love is of the valley, come, 
For Love is of the valley, come thou down 
And find him ; by the happy threshold, he, 
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, 
Or red with spirted purple of the vats, 
Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk 
With Death and Morning on the °silver horns, 
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, 190 

Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, 
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls 
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors : 
But follow ; let the torrent dance thee down 
To find him in the valley; let the wild 
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave 
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill 
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 
That like a broken purpose waste in air : 
So waste not thou ; but come ; for all the vales 200 

Await thee ; °azure pillars of the hearth 
Arise to thee; the children call, and I 
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, 
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, 

K 



130 THE PRINCESS [VII 

The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
And murmuring of innumerable bees." 

So she low-toned; while with shut eyes I lay 
Listening ; then look'd. Pale was the perfect face ; 
The bosom with long sighs labour'd ; and meek 210 
Seem'd the full lips, and mild the luminous eyes, 
And the voice trembled and the hand. She said 
Brokenly, that she knew it, she had fail'd 
In sweet humility ; had fail'd in all ; 
That all her labour was but as a block 
Left in the quarry ; but she still were loth, 
She still were loth to yield herself to one 
That wholly scorn'd to help their equal rights 
Against the sons of men, and barbarous laws. 
She pray'd me not to judge their cause from her 220 
That wrong'd it, sought far less for truth than power 
In knowledge : something wild within her breast, 
A greater than all knowledge, beat her down. 
And she had nursed me there from week to week : 
Much had she learnt in little time. In part 
It was ill counsel had misled the girl 
To vex true hearts : yet she was but a girl — 
"Ah fool, and made myself a Queen of farce ! 
When comes another such ? never, I think, 
Till the Sun drop, dead, from the signs." 



VII] A MEDLEY 131 

Her voice 
Choked, and her forehead sank upon her hands, 231 
And her great heart thro' all the faultf ul Past 
Went sorrowing in a pause I dared not break ; 
Till notice of a °ehange in the dark world 
Was lispt about the acacias, and a bird, 
That early woke to feed her little ones, 
Sent from a dewy breast a cry for light : 
She moved, and at her feet the volume fell. 

" Blame not thyself too much," I said, " nor blame 
Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws ; 240 
These were the rough ways of the world till now. 
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know 
The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink 
Together, dwarf d or godlike, bond or free : 
For she that out of °Lethe scales with man 
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man 
His nights, his clays, moves with him to one goal, 
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — 
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, 
How shall men grow ? but work no more alone ! 250 
Our place is much : as far as in us lies 
We two will serve them both in aiding her — 
Will clear away the °parasitic forms 



132 THE PRINCESS [VII 

That seem to keep her up but drag her down — 

Will leave her space to "burgeon out of all 

Within her — let her make herself her own 

To give or keep, to live and learn and be 

All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 

For woman is not undevelopt man, 

But diverse : could we make her as the man, 260 

Sweet Love were slain : his dearest bond is this, 

Not like to like, but like in difference. 

Yet in the long years liker must they grow; 

The man be more of woman, she of man ; 

He gain in sweetness and in moral height, 

Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; 

She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, 

Xor lose the childlike in the larger mind; 

Till at the last she set herself to man, 

Like perfect music unto noble words ; 270 

And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, 

Sit side by side, full-sum m'd in all their powers, 

Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 

Self-reverent each and reverencing each, 

Distinct in individualities. 

But like each other ev'n as those who love. 

Then comes the statelier Eden back to men': 

Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm : 



VII] A MEDLEY 133 

Then springs the crowning race of humankind. 
May these things be ! " 

Sighing she spoke " I fear 2S0 
They will not." 

" Dear, but let us type them now 
In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest 
Of equal ; seeing either sex alone 
Is half itself, and. in true marriage lies 
ISTor equal, nor unequal : each fulfils 
Defect in each, and always thought in thought, 
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow, 
The single pure and. perfect animal, 
The two-celFd heart beating, with one full stroke, 
Life." 

And again sighing she spoke : " A dream 290 
That once was mine ! what woman taught you this ? " 

" Alone,'' I said, (i from earlier than I know, 
Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world, 
I loved the woman : he, that doth not, lives 
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self, 
Or pines in sad experience worse than death, 
Or keeps his wing'd affections dipt with crime : 
Yet was there one thro' whom I loved her, one 
Not learned, save in gracious household ways, 



LU THE PRIX', ES& [VII 

Not perfect, nay. but full of tender wants. ;.-.- 

N Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt 
In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise. 
Interpreter betweeu x'..- 3 :id meu. 

Who look*d all native to her place, and yet 
On t: 

T gi — to tread, and all male minds perforce 

s as they moved. 
led her with music. Happy he 
With such a mother ! faith in womankind 

- with his blood, and trust in all things high 31a 
Come- - him. and tho' he trip and fall 
Mind his soul with clay." 

•• But 1." 
Said Ida. tremulous - all unlike — 

v ours elf with woi - 
This mother is your model. I have heard 

►ubts : they well might be : I seem 
Amc my own self. > ince; 

You cannot love m 

•• Xay but thee *' I said 
:>m yearlong poring on thy pictured eyes, 
-een I loved, and loved the^ seen, and saw 320 

Thee woman thro' the crust of iron moods 
That mask'd thee from men's reverence up. and forced 



VII] A MEDLEY 135 

Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood: now, 
Giv'n back to life, to life indeed. thro ? thee, 
Indeed I love : the new day comes, the light 
Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults 
Lived over : lift thine eyes : my doubts are dead. 
My haunting sense of hollow shows : the change. 
This truthful change in thee has kill'd it. Dear. 
Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine. 
Like yonder morning on the blind half-world : 
Approach and fear not : breathe upon my br 
In that fine air I tremble, all the past 
Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and th 
Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come 
Eeels. as the golden Autumn woodland reels 
Athwart the smoke of burning wee ,-ive me, 

I waste my heart in signs : let be. My bride. 
My wife, my life. we will walk this world. 
Yoked in all. exercise of noble end. -_: 

And so thro* those dark gates ross the wild. 
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee : come, 
Yie] I thyself up : my hopes and thine are one : 
Accomplish thou my manhood and thys 
Lav thy sweet hands in mine and trust to mi 



136 THE PRINCESS [Conclusion 

CONCLUSION 

So closed our tale, of which I give you all 

The random scheme as wildly as it rose : 

The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased 

There came a minute's pause, and Walter said, 

•• I wish she had not yielded ! " then to me, 

" What, if you drest it up poetically ! " 

So pray'd the men, the women: I gave assent: 

Yet how to bind the seatter'd scheme of seven 

Together in one sheaf ? What style could suit ? 

The men required thai I should give throughout 10 

The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque, 

With which we banter'd little Lilia first: 

The women — and perhaps they felt their power, 

For something in the ballads which they sang, 

Or in their silent influence as they sat. 

Had ever seem'd to wrestle with burlesque, 

And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close — 

They hated banter, wish'd for something real, 

A gallant light, a noble princess — why 

Not make her true-heroic — true-sublime? 20 

Or all, they said, as earnest as the close? 

Which yet with such a framework scarce could be. 

Then rose a little feud betwixt the two, 



Conclusion] A MEDLEY 137 

Betwixt the mockers and the realists : 

And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, 

And yet to give the story as it rose, 

I moved as in a strange diagonal, 

And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. 

But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part 
In our dispute : the sequel of the tale 30 

Had touch'd her; and she sat, she pluck'd the 

grass, 
She flung it from her thinking : last, she fixt 
A showery glance upon her aunt, and said, 
" You — tell us what we are " who might have told, 
For she was cramm'd with theories out of books, 
But that there rose a shout : the gates were closed 
At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now, 
To take their leave, about the garden rails. 

So I and some went out to these : we climb' d 
The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw 40 

The happy valleys, half in light, and half 
Far-shadowing from the west, a land of peace ; 
Gray halls alone among their massive groves ; 
Trim hamlets ; here and there a rustic tower 
Half -lost in belts of hop and breadths of wheat ; 



138 THE PRINCESS [Conclusion 

The shimmering glimpses of a stream ; the seas ; 
A red sail, or a white ; and far beyond, 
Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France. 

" Look there, a °garden ! " said my college friend, 
The Tory member's elder son, " and °there ! 50 

God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, 
And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, 
A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled — 
Some sense of duty, something of a faith, 
Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, 
Some patient force to change them when we will, 
Some civic manhood firm against the crowd — 
But yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat, 
The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, 
The king is scared, the soldier will not fight, 60 

The little boys begin to shoot and stab, 
A kingdom topples over with a shriek 
Like an old woman, and down rolls the world 
In mock heroics stranger than our own ; 
Revolts, republics, revolutions, most 
No graver than a schoolboys' °barring out; 
Too comic for the solemn things they are, 
Too solemn for the comic touches in them, 
Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream 



Conclusion] A MEDLEY 139 

As some of theirs — God bless the narrow seas ! 70 
I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad." 

" Have patience," I replied, " ourselves are full 
Of social wrong ; and maybe wildest dreams 
Are but the needful preludes of the truth : 
For me, the genial day, the happy crowd, 
The sport half-science, fill me with a faith. 
This fine old world of ours is but a child 
Yet in the °go-cart. Patience ! Give it time 
To learn its limbs : there is a hand that guides." 

In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, 80 

And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood, 
Before a tower of crimson holly-hoaks, 
Among six boys, °head under head, and look'd 
No little lily-handed Baronet he, 
A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, 
A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep, 
A raiser of huge melons and of °pine, 
A patron of some thirty charities, 
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain, 
A °quarter-sessions chairman, abler none ; 90 

Fair-hair d and redder than a windy morn ; 
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those 
That stood the nearest — now acldress'd to speech — 



140 THE PRINCESS [Conclusion 

Who spoke few words and pithy, such as °closed 

Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year 

To follow : a shout rose again, and made 

The long line of the approaching °rookery swerve 

From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer 

From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang 

Beyond the °bourn of sunset ; 0, a shout ioo 

More joyful than the city-roar that hails 

Premier or king ! Why should not these great Sirs 

Give up their parks some dozen times a year 

To let the people breathe ? So thrice they cried, 

I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away. 

But we. went back to the Abbey, and sat on, 
So much the gathering darkness charm'd: we sat 
But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie, 
Perchance upon the future man : the walls 
Blackend about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd, 
And gradually the powers of the night, m 

That range above the region of the wind, 
Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up 
Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, 
Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. 

Last little Lilia, rising quietly, 
Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Balph 
From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went. 



NOTES 



PROLOGUE 

2. Lawns. "An open space in a forest or between or among 
woods ; a glade." — Century Dictionary. The description is of 
an English country gentleman's park, not of a closely-mown 
grass-plat. 

5. Institute. A sort of social and literary club for the work- 
ing people of the town. 

11. Greek. Referring to the style of architecture. Set with 
busts, i.e. around the walls. 

14. Abbey-ruin. Many of them remain in England, and 
they are sometimes, as here, preserved in private parks. 

15. Ammonites. Fossil shells of spiral form, frequently 
armed with projecting spines, and chambered within like the 
shell of the nautilus. Formerly called cor mi Ammonis (Am- 
nion's horn). The Egyptian deity Amun was represented as 
having a ram's head with large curling horns ; hence the name. 

20. Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere. A series of 
carved ivory balls, one inside another. Note the music of the 
line, and the way in which it suggests the character of the thing 
it describes. 

1 References to the Notes are indicated in the text by the mark °. 
141 



142 NOTES [Prol. 

21. Crease. More commonly spelled creese or fern. A 
Malay dagger. 

25. Agincourt. A village in France where Henry V. de- 
feated the French in 1415. 

26. Ascalon. A city near Jerusalem ; the scene of several 
battles during the crusades. 

34. Beat. Poetic form for beaten. 

35. Miracle of women. Wonder among women. 
55. Sown . . . with holiday. Explain the figure. 
63. Steep -up. A good Shakespearean word. 

68. Azure views. Referring to the blue haze of the distance. 

70. Dislink'd. It has been noted that Tennyson is fond of 
compounds with dis-, often using them in preference to the 
more common forms with un-. 

80. Otherwhere. Tennyson uses many words, like this, that 
have practically dropped out of use since the time of Shakespeare 
and Milton, but that are forcible and effective. 

82. Stump' d the wicket. Played cricket. 

87. Ambrosial. Divinely fragrant. 

87, 88. Note the alliterations in these lines. 

90. Satiated. Accent on the first syllable, and short sound 
for the second a. 

92. Gothic lighter than a fire. Contrasted with the more 
substantial but less aspiring, less suggestive, Greek architecture 
of the house. 

92. Of. Caused by. 

111-113. He ... he: one . . . another; proctor's dogs. 



Prol.] notes 143 

The students in the English universities call the proctor's 
assistants "bulldogs." The proctor is a subordinate college 
officer charged with the maintaining of discipline. 

116. Master. Head of a college. Grain : see dictionary. 

128. Convention. Conventionality. 

143. Gowns. The students of the English universities are 
required to wear black gowns at all university exercises. The 
" mortar-board " cap is also part of the costume. 

161. Lost their weeks. To obtain a degree at Oxford or 
Cambridge a student must have been "in residence " for nine 
terms. A term is not counted unless he has been present at 
dinner a certain number of weeks. Irregularity of attendance, 
therefore, would prevent a term from being counted, and would 
postpone the time of receiving the degree. Roughly, "losing 
their weeks '■' is equivalent to being " dropped " in an American 
school or college. 

176. Read. The English student says "read," where we 
say "study." We should hardly speak of "reading" mathe- 
matics. 

178. Muses of the cube and square. Mathematics. 

181. Cloisters. The covered walks or arcades around the 
inner sides of the college quadrangle. 

184. Wassail. Drinking healths. What is the original mean- 
ing of the word ? 

199. Chimeras. Eabulous monsters. Crotchets. Curious 
fancies. Solecisms. Here extravagant tales. The poet's inten- 
tion is evidently to prepare the mind for the improbabilities of 
the tale that is to follow. 

229. Burnt. As witches. 



144 NOTES [I 

231. Who " told the ' Winter's Tale ' " ? 

The Prologue is an admirable preparation for reading the 
rest of the story. Not only does it bring one easily into the 
spirit of the poem — half bantering, half earnest, but it touches 
and foreshadows almost everything in the story. Bear this in 
mind and refer to it from time to time when reading. 



7. Cast no shadow. Showing that he had sold his soul to 
Satan. 

14. Weird seizures. These were not mentioned in the first 
edition of the poem, but, like the songs, were added later. 
Opinions are divided as to whether the poem is strengthened 
or weakened by the addition. As you read see whether you 
think that they are " injurious to the unity of the work.*'' 

1!). Galen. A Greek physician. It was an old custom with 
physicians to carry ;i gilt-head cane. 

23. Half-canonized. Regarded almost as a saint. Tocanon- 
izc is to place in the canon or list of saints of the Roman 
Catholic Church. 

27. Pedant's wand. Schoolmaster's rod. The word pedant 
originally meant schoolmaster. 

33. Proxy-wedded with a bootless calf. When it was 
impossible for the bridegroom to be present at the wedding 
ceremony he was sometimes represented by a "proxy," who 
acted as his substitute. As a part of the ceremony the proxy 
bared his leg as high as the knee. Such a proxy-wedding was 
valid and legally binding. In this particular case, however, the 



I] NOTES 145 

Princess takes the ground that as at the time she was not of age 
to give consent, she could not be held to the contract. She was 
legally right in this position, and the ceremony amounted to 
nothing more than a betrothal of the children by their parents. 

50-56. The characters of Cyril and Florian are here described 
in a few words. Note the difference between them, and see 
whether this difference is clearly marked throughout the story. 

65. Cook'd his spleen. Brooded over or nursed his wrath. 
The spleen was regarded by the ancients as the seat of anger. 

80. Is there any significance in the fact that Cyril's volun- 
teering follows immediately the mention of the wealthy young 
widow ? 

93. Dewy-tasseFd. Hallam Tennyson says: " Hung with 
catkins as in the hazel-wood. It was spring-time." 

100. Silver sickle. New moon. 

106. Bastion' d. With ramparts at the top. 

109. Tilth. Cultivated land. Grange. A farmhouse. 

110. Blowing bosks of wilderness. "Uncultivated thickets 
blooming with wild-flowers" (Dawson). "Bosk" is akin to 
"bush." Note throughout the poem Tennyson's fondness for 
archaic words such as this. 

111. Mother-city. Chief city or capital. 

116. Without a star. Displaying no insignia of royalty. 

131-135. Knowledge ... all in all. Tennyson clearly 
regarded this as the Princess' great mistake. His own view 
is indicated by his words in " Locksley Hall : " 

" Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers." 



146 NOTES [I 

Again, in " In Memoriam" he says, speaking of knowledge : 

" For she is earthly of the mind, 

But Wisdom heavenly of the soul." 

170. Liberties. The college grounds within which the stu- 
dents could wander at will. 

174. Sibilation. A hissing sound. More probably here a 
whistle or prolonged "whew." 

175. As death in marble, i.e., as a statue. 
181. The summer of the vine. The warmth of the wine. 
188. Boys. Postilions. 
193. Presented. Represented. 
195. Masque or pageant. Dramatic performances. Look 

up the exact meaning of each. 

197-198. A sight . . . with laughter. The landlord or the 
three friends ? 

198. Holp. The old past tense of help. Another instance of 
Tennyson's use of archaic forms. 

213. Clocks and chimes, etc. Dawson's comment on this 
passage is interesting: "The love of precise punctuality, so 
deeply implanted in the female breast, has full scope at last, as 
far as pretty clocks go. Everywhere are busts and statues and 
lutes, and such-like bric-a-brac aids to knowledge — promiscu- . 
ously strewed about like blue china and cr< ickery-ware bulldogs in vi 
a modern drawing-room. Instinctively the male reader shrinks 
through this part of the poem, fearful of upsetting something. 
Very properly also the path of knowledge, thorny to the 
tyrannous male, is made comfortable there. The ladies drink 
in science 

Leaning deep in broidered down, 



II] NOTES 147 

as is befitting. Everything matches in that university. No 
common pine — the professorial desk is of satinwood. Due- 
attention is paid to dress also ; the doctors are violet-hooded, 
and the girls all uniformly in white — gregarious, though, even 
there, as in the outer world. The Princess, her hair still damp 
after her plunge in the river, though sitting in indignant judg- 
ment upon the culprits, has yet a jewel on her forehead." 

219. Pallas. Minerva, the goddess of wisdom. 

220. Blazon' d. On one globe was pictured the sky and on 
the other the earth. 

226. Gave. Opened. 

229. Tutors. At Oxford and Cambridge each student is 
placed under a tutor, who has the general supervision of his 
studies. 

233-234. In such a hand, etc. In a sloping, running hand, 
the fashionable feminine writing of the day. 

238. Cupid. The god of love, represented as blind. 

239. Uranian Venus. The heavenly Venus, representing the 
higher or spiritual love. 

244. Muffled. Shining through thin clouds. 

II 

The song is supposed to be sung by one of the women of the 
party, before the second of the men takes up the story. See 
Prologue, 236, also Part IV. of the Introduction. 

2. Academic silks. College gowns. 

8. Sang. Murmured, or rustled. 

10. Compact. Solid. Bossed. Embossed, carved in relief. 



148 NOTES [II 

13. Muses and the Graces. "The Muses, nine in number, 
Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Poly- 
hymnia, Urania, Calliope, presided, each in her own province, 
over poetry, art, and science. They were of divine nature, and, 
with Apollo their leader, as the god of poetry, stand for the 
higher activities of human life as their spiritual patrons. The 
Graces, three in number, Euphrosyne, Aglai'a, and Thalia, 
were merely personifications of female beauty." ( Woodberry.) 

27. Her height. Parse. 

28. Redound. Abundant return. Of rare use as a noun. 

31. That full voice. Fame. 

35. Although the Princess scorns the Prince, she has her full 
share of feminine curiosity in regard to him. 

44. Child. See I., 136. 

53. Conscious of ourselves. Embarrassed by the thought of 
their disguise. 

55. Statutes. College rules. 

60. Enter'd on the boards. Registered as students. An 
English college expression. 

63. Odalisques. Female slaves of an Eastern harem. Mode. 
Fashion. 

64. She. The wood-nymph Egeria, who was said to have 
given instructions to Nuina Pompilius, the second king of Rome. 

Go. She. Semiramis, the legendary Assyrian queen, who 
was said to have built Babylon. 

67. Artemisia. Queen of Halicarnassus. She aided Xerxes 
in his expedition against Greece, fighting with great bravery at 
the battle of Salamis. 



II] NOTES 149 

68. Rhodope. Rhodopis, an Egyptian woman, was said to 
have built a pyramid near Memphis. It was really, however, 
the work of another woman. 

69. Clelia. A Roman girl who was given as a hostage to 
Porsena and escaped by swimming the Tiber on horseback. 
Cornelia. The famous Roman matron, daughter of Scipio 
Africanus, and mother of the Gracchi, "her jewels." Pal- 
myrene. Zenobia, queen of Palmyra. 

71. Agrippina. Another famous Roman matron, grand- 
daughter of Augustus and wife of Germanicus. 

72. Convention. See Prologue, 128, and note. 

87. Forms. Benches. 

94. Headed like a star. Hal lam Tennyson says that this 
means " with bright golden hair." 

96. Aglaia. The name of one of the Graces ; it means 
brightness. 

97. The dame. Midas had his ears turned into those of an 
ass by Apollo. Ovid says that his barber, being sworn to se- 
crecy and feeling that he must tell the story, whispered it into 
a hole in the ground. From this grew up a reed that told it to 
the world. Chaucer in his version substitutes the wife for the 
barber, and Tennyson follows the latter version. 

101-104. These lines contain a most admirable summary of 
the "Nebular Hypothesis," which was formulated by the famous 
French astronomer, Laplace, not far from the beginning of the 
nineteenth century. 

105. Woaded. The ancient Britons used to dye their bodies 
with the blue of the woad-plant. 

112. Appraised. Praised. A rare use of the word. Lycian 



150 NOTES [II 

custom. Herodotus says that the Lycians took their names from 
the mother instead of the father, and traced descent through the 
female line. 

113. Lay at wine. Joined in the feasts, at which the guests 
reclined on couches. Lar and Lucumo. Etruscan titles of rank. 

114. Persian, Grecian, Roman. What was the position of 
women in these nations ? 

117. Laws Salique. '• Laws forbidding inheritance to pass 
through a female line. The reference is to one of the clauses in 
the | !ode of Laws of the Salian Franks, an early German tribe, 
annum whom this prohibition was believed to have originated. 
... A quarrel on the application of this Law to the throne of 
France caused in 1337 the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War 
between England and France, Edward III. claiming the crown 
in right of his mother, Isabella, daughter of the late King 
Philip V., and Philip of Valois, the nearest heir by the male 
line, maintaining that the Law had always been extended to 
the kingdom of France." (Wallace.) 

119. Chivalry. In mediaeval times, when knighthood was 
an important factor in the social system, an exaggerated respect 
was paid to women. 

144. Verulam. Lord Bacon. (Baron Verulam of Verulam.) 

147. Joan. Joan of Are. 

148. Sappho. A famous Greek poetess. Only fragments 
of her work remain, but these are remarkable for their exquisite 
beauty, as well as for the strength of passion displayed in them. 

156. Two heads. Man and woman 

178. See I., 209. 



II] NOTES 151 

180. Compare this use of "Adam" with that of "Galen.' 1 
I., 19. Academe. Academy. 

181. Sirens. By the beauty of their singing the sirens lured 
sailors to shipwreck on the rocks. 

188-189. Weasel ... for warning. Nailed to a barn-door 
as a warning to other weasels. 

205. Not mine. Not her own master. 

209. Garth. Garden. 

222. Beetle brow. Projecting eyebrows. 

223. Sun-shaded. The meaning is obscure. It may mean 
that the eyes were shaded from the sun by the projecting, 
shaggy eyebrows. 

224. Bestrode. Stood over him to protect him. 
230. Fly. Butterfly. 

203. Spartan mother. It was part of the Spartan training 
to sacrifice natural feeling for the sake of the public good. 

204. Lucius Junius Brutus. He put to death his two sons 
who had joined a conspiracy to restore the banished Tarquins 
to the throne. 

269. Secular. Here used in an unusual sense. See dic- 
tionary. 
282. A to-and-fro. A pacing back and forth. 
295. Gracious dews. Tears. 

304. Colour. Yellow was the color worn by Lady Blanche's 
pupils, as lilac was by Lady Psyche's. 

305. Fair. Clear. 



152 NOTES [II 

316. Elm and vine. As close as the elm and the vine that 
twines about it. 

319. Danaid of a leaky vase. The daughters of Danaus, for 
murdering their husbands, were punished in Hades by being 
compelled to carry water in sieves. The expression means, 
therefore, one unable to keep a secret. 

323. Aspasia. A famous woman of remarkable intellectual 
power, who exercised great influence in Athens at the time of 
Pericles. 

325. Sheba. The Queen of Sheba. See 1 Kings x. 1-13 ; 
2 Chronicles ix. 1-12. 

338. Affect abstraction. Pretend to be lost in thought. 

353. Lilted out. Declaimed or intoned. 

360. Frame. The human frame. Of this they learned only 
"something"; they did not go deeply into physiology. See 
III., 289-299. 

'M'l. Trash, etc. Florian is referring to Cyril's extravagant 
compliments to Lady Psyche. 

388. Malison. Curse. 

389-411. In connection with this speech of Cyril's, recall 
the description of him in I., 52-54. 

392. Castles. See I., 73-78. 

420. Astraean age. Astrsea was the last deity to leave the 
earth at the close of the golden age, and it was believed that 
she would be the first to come back at its return. The mean- 
ing of the line is that the Princess was lost in a dream of some 
golden age for women in the future. 

423. Inmost. Technical and obscure to the ordinary mind. 



.» 



III] NOTES 153 

435. Hid and sought. Played hide and seek. 

443. Fates. The three divinities, Clotho, Lachesis, and 
Atropos, who watched over and guided the destinies of men. 

448. White. At Cambridge a white surplice is worn, in- 
stead of the black gown, at certain chapel services. 

450-453. Four remarkable lines, strongly suggestive of Milton. 

454. The work of Ida. Her composition. 



Ill 

1-2. A very beautiful description. 

11. Iris. The rainbow. Here, of course, it means dark 
rings under the eyes. 

34. Set ... in rubric. In old manuscripts and in some 
modern books certain words are printed in red to make them 
conspicuous. The rubrics in the prayer-book are an example. 

jf 55. Ganymedes. Ganymede, a mortal, was taken to Olym- 
pus to be the cupbearer of the gods. 

56. Vulcans. Vulcan was thrown out of heaven by Zeus, 
and was lame ever after. See Paradise Lost, I., 740-746. 

t> 73. Inosculated. Blent together into one. 

74. Consonant . . . note. It may refer to the fact that 
when a chord is struck on one musical instrument the same 
chord on a neighboring instrument will vibrate also ; or it may 
mean that "the notes . . . being chords, blend into one musi- 
cal note, and the ear cannot separate the two sets of vibrations." 

96. Her, and her. Lady Psyche and Melissa. 



154 NOTES [ III 

97. Hebes. Hebe was the cupbearer of tbe gods. 

99. Here. Juno, wife of Zeus. Samos was one of her favor- 
ite cities. 

100. Memnon. A colossal statue in Egypt, said to be of 
Memnon, was reported to give forth a musical sound when 
touched by the rays of the rising sun. 

104. Champaign. Level, open country. 
111. Prime. Primeval. 

115. At point to move. Just ready to start. \ 

121. Your example pilot. An absolute clause. See II., 195. 

126. Limed. Caught with bird-lime, a sticky substance 
smeared on trees to hold fast birds that light on it. 

144. Wink at. Connive at, pretend ignorance. 

154. Dip. The geological term for the downward slant of 
strata. 

159. Platans. Plane-trees. 

105. Leopards. See II., 19. 

179. Retinue. Here accented on the second syllable, as in 
Milton and Shakespeare. 

185. One. The Prince. 

212. Vashti. See Esther i. 12. ' | 

215. Breathes full East. It may mean "breathes the spirit 
of the Eastern queen," or it may mean "like a harsh, east 
wind. ' ' 

218. Gray. Old. 

227. Issue. A legal term for children. 



Ill] XOTES 155 

246. Pou sto. She refers to the famous saying of Archi- 
medes, " Give me where I may stand (pou sto), and I will move 
the world." 

251. Flies. Short-lived. 

261. Taboo. In the South Pacific Islands a ban is placed 
upon certain persons or things, all intercourse with them or use 
of them being forbidden. This interdiction is called a taboo. 

262. Gynaeceum. The part of a Greek house reserved for 
the women. 

269. Spring against the pikes. At the battle of Sempach, 
in 1388, Arnold von Winkelried rushed upon the Austrian line, 
and, gathering to his breast as many spears as he could grasp 
with his outstretched arms, made a gap through which his com- 
rades rushed. In the Latin war (b.c. 310) Publius Decius Mus, 
having had it revealed to him in a vision that the leader of the 
army which was to be victorious would perish, sacrificed him- 
self upon the spears of the enemy. 

270. Down the fiery gulf. When the priests declared that 
the chasm which had appeared in the market-place at Rome 
would not close without a fitting sacrifice, Marcus Curtius leaped 
into it on horseback and in full armor. 

277. Some vast bulk. Some extinct monster. 

280. Dare we think of the Almighty as a workman who im- 
proves with practice ? 

285. Diotima. A priestess who is said to have instructed 
Socrates. 

285-286. That died of hemlock. Socrates was condemned 
to death by drinking hemlock. This was the customary way of 
inflicting the death penalty at Athens. 



156 NOTES [IV 

288. Schools. Courses or departments ; groups of studies 
giving a special training. 

290. One anatomic. See note on II. , 3(50. 

293. Carve the living hound. Practise vivisection. 

296. Microcosm. Little world ; applied to the human body. 

298. Encarnalize. Make carnal, brutalize. 

299. Hangs. Waits for decision. 

324. Elysian. Elysium was the abode of the righteous after 
death. 

325. Demigods. The name was first applied to mortals of 
divine descent, later to those heroes who had won by their brav- 
ery or other virtue the privilege of entering Elysium. 

331. Comma's triumph. Corinna was a Greek poetess who 
several times defeated Pindar in public poetical contests. 

334. Victor. Pindar. 

344-345. Different kinds of stone. 



IV 

2. Hypothesis. See II., 101-103. 

5. Coppice-feather'd. Lightly fringed with foliage. 

8. The inner. The inside. A curious use of the word. 

17. Gold. Referring probably to the table furniture ; it may 
possibly, however, refer to the wine. 

47. Cram our ears. When Ulysses passed by the island of 
the Sirens, he filled the ears of his companions with wax so 
that they would not hear the fatal singing. He left his own 



IV] NOTES 157 

ears unstopped, but had himself bound to the mast, so that he 
could hear but not yield. 

59. Kex. Hemlock. 

60. Beard-blown. With his beard blowing in the wind. 

61. Hang on the shaft. Hang on the ruined pillar as on a 
rock. 

61. Wild figtree. The wild figtree is often spoken of by 
Roman poets as splitting rocks and buildings in its growth. 

64. Burns. Glows with the reflected light of the sun not 
yet above the horizon. 

69. Death's-head. Herodotus says that the Egyptians had 
a custom of bringing into their feasts a wooden image of a 
corpse to remind the banqueters of their inevitable end. 

71. Swallow winging south. See III., 194. 

100. Ithacensian suitors. During the twenty years that 
Ulysses was away from home in the Trojan war, his wife 
Penelope had many suitors. He returned unknown to the in- 
truders, over whom Pallas cast an enchantment causing them 
to laugh nervously and unnaturally for no apparent reason — 
''with other men's jaws " —possibly as if they had a sort of 
presentiment of their doom. See Odyssey, Book XX. 

104. Bulbul. Persian for nightingale. Gulistan. Persian 
for rose-garden. 

105-100. Marsh-diver . . . meadow-crake. Birds with very 
harsh notes. Dawson quotes Wood as saying that the cry of 
the latter "may be exactly imitated by drawing a quill or a 
piece of stick over the large teeth of a comb, or by rubbing 
together two jagged strips of bone." 



158 NOTES [IV 

110. Made bricks in Egypt. When women were still in 
bondage to men, before the establishment of this refuge. See 
Exodus, i. 8-14 ; v. 7, 8. 

117. Canzonets. Short songs of a light and airy character. 

121. Valkyrian. The Valkyrs ("Choosers of the Slain") 
were Warrior Nymphs, sisters of Odin. They presided over 
the held of battle, selected those who were to be slain, and con- 
ducted them to Valhalla. 

126. Mock-Hymen. Hymen was the god of marriage. 

137. With whom . . . wrought. On whom the wine had 
taken effect. 

148. Why does the Princess give orders to flee, instead of to 
seize and punish the offenders ? 

160. From glow to gloom. From the lighted tent. 

162. Rapt to the horrible fall. Hurried toward the cataract. 

172. Glimmeringly. It was after sunset. 

183. Caryatids. Statues of draped, female figures used as 
pillars. 

184. Valves. "Folding gates. 

185-188. In which the hunter, etc. The design on the gates 
represented Actseon, who, as a punishment for spying on Diana 
at her bath, was turned into a stag. He is evidently just under- 
going the change — still " manlike " in form but with the antlers 
sprouting on his brow. The branching horns form spikes on 
the top of the gate. 

194. Bear. The constellation of the Great Bear. 

200. Out of rules. In the English Universities the under- 



IV] NOTES 159 

graduates are required to be inside the college gates before a 
certain hour. 

203. A moral leper. Shunned and avoided as if he were a 
leper. 

207. Judith. Judith, the Jewess, when her native city was 
besieged by Holofernes, went to the Assyrian camp, made a 
pretext for getting into the general's tent, and cut off his head 
as he lay asleep. 

217. Either guilt. The guilt of both. 

228. Smock'd or furr'd and purpled. Whether wearing the 
smock frock of the laborer, or the rich garb of the wealthy and 
noble. 

242. Thrid . . . the mazes. Thread the narrow winding 
paths. 

243. Boles. Tree-trunks. 

250. Mnemosyne. The goddess of memory, mother of the 
Muses. 

252. Haled. Dragged. 

255. Mystic fire. " St. Elmo's Fire," which appears on the 

tips of masts under certain electrical conditions of the atmos- 
phere. 

259. Daughters of the plough. Peasant women. 

260. Blowzed. Eed and coarse of complexion. 

261. Druid rock. The Druids were the priests of the early 
Britons. At Stonehenge and other places in England are pillars 
supposed to have been erected by the Druids. 

263. Wailed about with mews. Surrounded by yelling gulls 
and sea-mews. 



160 2TOTES [IV 

204. Clove. The old past tense of cleave. 

275. Castalies. Castalia, or Castaly, was a mythical spring 
on Mount Parnassus, sacred to the Muses, and believed to give 
pontic inspiration to all who drank of it. 

292. Jonah's gourd. That grew up in a night and withered 
as rapidly. See Jonah iv. G-ll. 

290. Planed. Smoothed. 

314. Grain. Strong, healthy wood. Touchwood. The name 
given to certain decayed wood used as tinder. 

347. Cuckoo. Insti ad of building a nest for itself, the cuckoo 
lays its eggs in that of some other bird. 

352. Niobean. Because Niobe, queen of Thebes, boasted of 
her twelve children, Apollo and Artemis killed them all. The 
mother, weeping for them, was changed into a stone which still 
continued to mourn. 

357. Woman-post. Courier or messenger. 

366-367. The rick flames. During the troubles between the 
farm laborers and the landlords, from 1830 to 1850, it was not 
uncommon for the peasants to set fire to ricks of hay and to 
other produce. 

393. Kick against. Revolt against. 

415. Glowworm. Phosphorescent. 

418. Cassiopeia. An Ethiopian queen, who after death was 
placed in heaven as a constellation. 

419. Persephone. The daughter of Ceres. She was stolen 
by Pluto, while she was gathering flowers, and was carried by 
him to Hades, where she became his queen. The meaning of 
these two lines is that the Prince would have found her whether 
she were in heaven or in hell. 



IV] NOTES 161 

420. Of abeyance. During which the marriage or betrothal 
was held in abeyance. 

422. Frequence. Crowd; an unusual word, but found in 
Milton. 

426, Landskip. The old form of landscape. 

427. Dwarfs of presage. Less than had been foretold. 

436. The seal does music. The seal is said to be strongly 
attracted by musical sounds. 

456. Illumined hall. It was now after midnight. 

466. Babel. See Genesis xi. 1-9. 

473. Crimson-rolling. It is a red " revolving" light. 

480. Those to avenge us. Referring to her brothers. 

484. Protomartyr. The first martyr. Thus Stephen was the 
protomartyr of the Christian faith. 

495. Turnspits. Meat was roasted by fixing it on a " spit" 
or pointed rod over the fire. The "turnspit," then, is the 
servant set to turn this rod. "Turnspits for the clown" 
means "servants for the boor." 

505. Floated. What is the force of the word here ? 

523. Lord you. Address you as lord. 

529. Address'd. Directed or turned. 

INTERLUDE 

The interlude marks a change in the character of the poem. 
Up to this point the tone has been largely that of 

raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime. 

M 



102 NOTES [V 

Now it becomes more serious and earnest. The real purpose of 
the poem becomes more apparent. At the same time the prin- 
cipal characters become stronger and more consistent. Up to 
this point the Princess has been anything but attractive, and 
the Prince, while he has not been offensive, has impressed us 
as a neutral character, lacking in real strength. The Prince, 
perhaps, does not gain much in strength, but with the Princess 
there is a steady growth until at last the mask is thrown aside, 
and, by the power of an overmastering love, her true self 
stands revealed in all its beauty of noble womanliness. 

V 

2. Stationary voice. Of a sentinel. 

4. The second two. Cyril and Psyche were the first two. 

13. Innumerous. Innumerable. 

14. Hissing. 'Whispering. 

21. Squire. An attendant on a knight, who was preparing 
himself by such service to attain knighthood himself. 

2-"). Mawkin. Kitchen-maid, or menial servant; here one 
who tends pigs. 

26. Sludge. Mire. 

28. From the sheath. Just opened. 

37. Transient. Changing. 

38. Woman-slough. Female garments. "Slough" means 
the skin cast off by a snake. When used in this sense the 
word rhymes with "enough." When, however, it means a 
miry hole, or morass, it rhymes with " bough." 

40. Harness. Armor. 



V] NOTES 163 

110. Parle. Parley, conference. 

121. Year. Harvest. 

125. Lightens. Flashes. 

132. Shards. Fragments of brick and stone. Catapults. 
Contrivances used before the invention of gunpowder to hurl 
large stones. 

142. Mammoth. A prehistoric colossal beast, the remains 
of which are sometimes found in northern countries. 

146. Idiot legend. See I., 5. 

162. Cherry net. It is quite common in England to protect 
fruit-trees from birds by covering them with light nets. 

170. Gagelike. In the days of chivalry a knight used to 
challenge to combat by flinging down before his enemy his 
glove as a gage or pledge of battle. 

179. Satyr. A mythological creature, half man, half goat. 

190. Piebald. Spotted with different colors. 

195. Mooted. Debated, questioned. 

213. Buss'd. Kissed. 

227. A thousand rings. As a new ring is added every year, 
this would make them a thousand years old. 

229. Valentines. Songs or messages of love. 

246. Such thews of men. Such strong men. "Thews" 
means muscles and sinews. 

250. Airy Giant's zone. The belt of the constellation Orion. 

252. Sirius. The dog-star. 

254. Morions. Helmets. 



164 NOTES [V 

260. 'Sdeath. A contraction of GocVs death, referring to 
the Crucifixion. An old oath. 

283. St. something. St. Catharine of Alexandria, who is 
said to have converted the fifty learned men sent by the Emperor 
Maxentius to turn her from Christianity. 

287. Foughten. An archaic form of the participle. 

299. Cowards to their shame. The words probably mean, 
" moral cowards afraid to face the shame of what would appear 
physical cowardice." 

319. False daughters. Ducklings that have been hatched 
by her. 

324. Flush. The word has two meanings, to "redden" and 
to " fill 'full." Either meaning might be applicable here. 

355. Valves. Gates. Tomyris. The queen of the Massa- 
getee, against whom Cyrus made an expedition. She defeated 
and killed him, and then, dipping his head in a, skin filled with 
blood, bade him, since he was so bloodthirsty, drink his fill. 

368. Scourge. A former Russian custom. 

369-370. Living hearts . . . despots. The Hindoo custom 
of burning the widow on the husband's funeral pyre. 

371. All prophetic pity. According to Hindoo ideas a girl 
would be dishonored if not married before a certain age. To 
avoid this dishonor "prophetic pity" often impelled a mother 
to murder a daughter immediately after birth. 

381. Memorial. Eictures, statues, etc. 

382. Institutes. Laws and regulations. 

404. Gad-fly. This temporary trouble. 

405. The Time. The present age. 



VI] NOTES 165 

412—113. Over all . . . morn. Wallace paraphrases this 
passage thus : "Over all the regions that lie upon the circling 
surface of the earth from pole to pole." 

417. Egypt-plague. Referring, of course, to the plagues 
sent upon the Egyptians as a punishment for Pharaoh's cruelty 
to the Children of Israel. 

441. The gray mare. Referring to the old proverb, "The 
gray mare is the better horse." 

448. Bantling. Child. 

449. Potherbs. Vegetables. 

460. Wild morning. See I., 90-100. 

478. Bare on. Carried forward. 

491. Mellay. An anglicized form of the French word melee ; 
a confused conflict. 

500. Miriam. The sister of Moses. After the passage of 
the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh's host she sang, to 
the timbrel, a song of triumph. See Exodus xv. 20-21. Jael. 
The woman who delivered the Jews from the oppression of 
Sisera by driving a nail into his temple as he lay asleep. See 
Judges ,iv. 17-21. 

513. Pillar of electric cloud. A cyclone or tornado. 

VI 

1. My dream had never died. The trance had not passed 
away. 

16. Great dame of Lapidoth. Deborah, wife of Lapidoth. 
The reference is to her song of triumph over Sisera. See Judges 
iv. 4, and v. 1-31. 



166 NOTES [VII 

17. The idea of the song is a comparison between the cause 
of woman and a tree. 

2-5. Red cross. As a sign to the wood-cutters that it was to 
be felled. 

47. Blanched. Marked with white; a day to be celebrated. 

49. Spring. Blossoms, flowers. 

70. Fretwork. His branching antlers. 

88. Of grisly twine. Matted and tangled. 

94. The painting and the tress. See I., 37, 38. 

101. Fancy. Her whims. 

118. Brede. Embroidery. 

142. Learnt. Recognized. 

158. Nemesis. The goddess of retribution. 

100. Port. Portal, opening. 

180. A love not to be mine. Wedded love. 

180. Dead prime. The darkness before dawn. 

224. Lot's wife. See Genesis xix. 20. 

283. Adit. Access, entrance. 

298. She . . . song. See IV., 21. 

337. Cats. Her leopards. 

352. Ordinance. Orders, directions. 

VII 

18. Leaguer. Camp. 

19. Void was her use. " Her life was empty of its usual 
occupations." (Boynton.) 



VII] NOTES 107 

23. Verge. Horizon. 

25. Tarn. Small dark pond. 

31. Gyres. Circles. 

50. Charities. Her care of the wounded. 

GO. Built upon. Based his suit upon. 

07-68. Involved in stillness. Implied by silence. 

88. Dead. Dead of night. 

109. Oppian law. A sumptuary law, passed when Hannibal 
was threatening Rome, to restrict women in the use of orna- 
ments, etc. When the crisis had passed the women rose in 
anger and forced its repeal in spite of Cato's resistance. 
Titanic. Colossal. 

112. Hortensia. Daughter of the orator Hortensius. She 
spoke most eloquently and successfully in opposition to a tax 
levied on wealthy Roman matrons to defray the expenses of 
the war against Brutus and Cassius. 

113. Axe and eagle. The emblems, respectively, oi civil 
and military authority in the Roman Republic. 

115. Wolf's-milk. Referring to the legend that Romulus 
and Remus were suckled by a wolf. 

148. That other. .Aphrodite (Venus) rising from the sea. 

167. All Danae to the stars. Open to their influence. The 
Princess Danae was confined in a tower, to which Zeus gained 
admittance by taking the form- of a shower of gold. 

182. Sparkling spire. The sharp rocks of the Alps are 
meant. 



168 NOTES [Con. 

189. Silver horns. "Horns" means mountain-tops, and 
"silver" refers to their appearance in the dim light of dawn. 

201. Azure pillars of the hearth. Blue smoke from the 
cottages. 

234. A change. The approach of morning. 

245. Lethe. The river of oblivion ; whoever drank of it was 
forever after forgetful of his previous existence.^ 

253. Parasitic forms. Conventionalities. 

255. Burgeon. Burst forth into blossoms. 

CONCLUSION 

49. There, a garden. England. 

50. There. France. 

66. Barring out. The shutting out of a schoolmaster from 
his class-room by his pupils. 

78. Go-cart. A frame on small wheels to support children 



Kadi one a size smaller than the 



90. Quarter-sessions. A court held every three months for 
the trial of minor offences. 

94. Closed. Included. 

97. Rookery. Flight of rooks. 

100. Bourn. Limit. 



while learnin 


g to walk. 


83. 


Head 


under head. 


next. 






87. 


Pine. 


Pineapples. 



INDEX TO NOTES 



Abbey-ruin, 141. 

Abeyance, 161. 

Academe, 151. 

Academic silks, 147. 
\ Actgeon, 158. 
J- Adit, 166. 

Addressed, 161. 

Affect abstraction, 152. 

Agrippina, 149. 

Agincourt, 142. 

Agla'ia, 14!). 

Airy Giant's zone, 163. 

Ambrosial, 142. 

Ammonites, 141. 

Anatomic, 156. 

Appraised, 149. 

Artemisia, 118. 

Ascalon, 142. 

Aspasia, 152. 

Astrasan age, 152. 

At point to move, 154. 

Axe and eagle, 167. 

Azure pillars of the hearth. 

Azure views, 142. 

Babel, 161. 
Bantling, 165. 
Bare on, 165. 
Barring out, 168. 
Bastioned, 145. 



168. 



Bear, 158. 

Beard-blown, 156. 

Beat, 142. 

Beetle brow, 151. 

Bestrode, 151. 

Blanched, 1G6. 

Blazoned, 147. 

Blowing bosks of wilderness, 145. 

Blowzed, 159. 

Boles, 159. 

Bossed, 147. 

Bourn, 168. 

Boys, 146. 

Breathes full East, 154. 

Brede, 166. 

Brutus, Lucius Junius, 151. 

Built upon, 167. 

Bulbul, 157. 

Burgeon, 168. 

Burns, 157. 

Burnt, 143. 

Bussed, 163. 

Carve the living hound, 156. 
Caryatids, 158. 
Canzonets, 158. 
Cassiopeia, 160. 
Castalies, 160. 
Cast no shadow, 144. 
Catapults, 163. 
109 



170 



INDEX TO NOTES 



Cats, 166. 

Champaign, 154. 

Charities, 1(57. 

Cherry net, 163. 

Chimeras, 143. 

Chivalry, 150. 

Clelia, 141). 

Clocks and chimes, 146. 

Cloisters, 143. 

Closed, Ki8. 

Clove, 160. 

Compact, 147. 

Conscious of ourselves, 148. 

Consonant . . . note, 153. 

Cooked his spleen. 14"i. 

Coppice-feathered, 156. 

Corinna, 156. 

Cornelia, 149. 

Cowards to their shame, 164. 

Cram our ears, 156. 

Crease, 142. 

Crimson-rolling, 161. 

Crotchets, 143. 

Cuckoo, 160. 

Cupid, 147. 



Dame that whispered 

ears," 140. 
Danae to the stars, 107. 
Dan a id, 152. 

Daughters of the plough, 
Dead, 167. 
Dead prime, 166. 
Death's head, 157. 
Death in marhle, 146. 
Demiirods, 156. 



Asses' 



159. 



Dewy-tasselled, 145. 

Died of hemlock, 155. 

Diotima, 155. 

Dip, 154. 

Dislinked, 142. 

Down the fiery gulf, 155. 

Dwarfs of presage, 161. 

Egypt-plague, 165. 
Electric cloud, 165. 
Elm and vine, 152. 
Elysian, 156. 
Encarnalize, 156. 
Entered on the boards, 148. 

Fair, 151. 
Fancy, 166. 
False daughters, 1<!4. 
Fates, 1.".:;. 
Figtree, wild, 157. 
Flics. 155. 
Flush. 1(14. 
Fly, 151. 
Forms, 149. 
Foughten, 1(14. 
Frame, 152. 
Frequence, 161. 
Fretwork, 166. 
From the sheath, 162. 

Gagelike, 163. 
Galen, 144. 
Ganymede, 153. 
Garth, 151. 
Gave, 147. 
Glow to gloom, 158. 



INDEX TO NOTES 



171 



K 



Glow worm, 160. 

Go-cart, 168. 

Gold, 15(5. 

Gothic lighter than a fire, 142. 

Gowns, W'k 

Graces, 148. 

Gracious dews, 151. 

Grain, ItiO. 

Grange, 145. 

Gray, 154. 

Gray mare, 165. 

Grisly twine, 166. 

Greek, 111. 

Gulistan, 157. 

Gynaeceum, 155. 

Gyres, 167. 

Haled, 159. 
Half-canonized, 144. 
Hang on the shaft, 157. 
Hangs, 156. 
Harness, 162. 
Headed like a star, 149. 
Head under head, 168. 
Hebe, 154. 
Here, 154. 

Hid and sought, 153. 
Hissing, 162. 
Holp, 146. 
Hortensia, 167. 

Inmost, 152. 
Inner, 156. 
In numerous, 162. 
Inosculated, 153. 
Institute, 141. 



Institutes, 164. 
Involved in stillness, 167. 
Iris, 153. 
Issue, 154. 
Ithacensian suitors, 157. 

Joan, 150. 
Jonah's gourd, 160. 
Judith, 159. 

Kex, 157. 

Kick against, 160. 

Knowledge . . . all in all, 145. 

Laborious orient ivory, 141. 

Landskip, 161. 

Lapidoth, dame of, 165. 

Lar, 150. 

Lawns, 141. 

Laws Salique, 150. 

Lay at wine, 150. 

Leaguer, 166. 

Learnt, Kit!. 

Lethe, 168. 

Liberties, 146. 

Lightens, 163. 

Lilted out, 152. 

Limed, 154. 

Lord you, 161. 

Lost their weeks, 143. 

Lot's wife, 166. 

Love not to be mine, 166. 

Lucumo, 150. 

Lycian custom, 149 

Made bricks in Egypt, 158. 
Malison, 152. 



172 



IXDEX TO NOTES 



Mammoth, 163. 

Marsh-diver, 157. 

Masque, 140. 

Master, 14.'). 

Mawkin, 162. 

Meadow-crake, 157. 

Mel lay, 165. 

Memnon, 154. 

Microcosm, 156. 

Miracle of women, 142. 

Miriam. 165. 

Mnemosyne. 159. 

Mock-Hymen, 158. 

Mode, lis. 

Mooted. 163. 

Moral leper. 159. 

Morions. 163. 

Mother-city, 145. 

Muffled, 147. 

Muses, 14*. 

Muses of the cube and square, 

143. 
Mystic fire, 159. 

Nemesis, 166. 
Niobean, 160. 
Not mine, 151. 

Odalisques, 148. 
Of, 142. 

Oppian law, 167. 
Ordinance, 166. 
Otherwhere, 142. 

Pageant. 146. 
Pallas, 147. 



Palmyrene, 149. 
Parasitic forms, 168. 
Parle, 163. 
Pedant's wand, 144. 
Persephone, 160. 
Piebald, 163. 
Pine, 168. 
Planed, 160. 
Platans, 154. 
Port, 166. 
l'i> ii sto, 155. 
Presented, 140. 
Prime, 154. 
Proctor's dogs, 142. 
Prophetic pity, 1(54. 
Protqmartyr, 161. 
Proxy-wedded, 144. 

Quarter-sessions, 168. 



Rapt to the fall 
Read, 143. 

Red cross, 166. 
Redound, 148. 
Retinue, 154. 
Rhodope, 149. 
Rick flames, 160. 
Rookery, 168. 

Sang, 147. 
Sappho, 150. 
Satiated, 142. 
Satyr, 163. 
Schools. 156. 
Scourge, K14. 
'Sdeath, 164. 



158. 



I XI) EX TO XOTES 



173 



Seal (and music), 161. 

Set ... in rubric, 153. 

Set with busts, 141. 

Shards, 163. 

Sheba, 152. 

Silver horns, 168. 

Sibilation, 146. 

Silver sickle, 145. 

Sirens, 151. 

Sirius, 163. 

Sludge, 162. 

Smocked or furred and purpled, 

159. 
Solecisms, 143. 
Sparkling spire, 167. 
Spartan mother, 151. 
Spring, 166. 

Spring against the pikes, 155. 
Squire, 162. 
Stationary voice, 162. 
Statutes, 148. 
Steep-up, 142. 
St. something, 1(54. 
Stumped the wicket, 142. 
Such a hand, 147. 
Summer of the vine, 146. 
Sun-shaded, 151. 



Taboo, 155. 

Tarn, 167. 

That full voice, 148. 

Thews of men, 163. 

Thousand rings, 163. 

Thrid . . . the mazes, 

Tilth, 145. 



150. 



Titanic, 167. 
To-and-fro, 151. 
Tomyris, 164. 
Touchwood, 160. 
Transient, 162. 
Turnspits, 161. 
Tutors, 147. 
Two beads, 150. 

Urania n Venus, 147. 

Valves, 158, 164. 
Valentines, 163. 
Valkyrian, 158. 
Vashti, 151. 
Vast bulk, 155. 
Verge, 167. 
Verulam, 150. 
Void was her use, 166. 
Vulcan, 153. 

Wailed about with mews, 159. 

Wassail, 143. 

Weasel . . . for warning, 151. 

Weird seizures, 144. 

Wink at, 154. 

Without a star, 145. 

Woaded, 149. 

Wolf's milk, 167. 

Woman-post, 160. 

Woman-slough, 162. 

Work of Ida, 153. 

Year, 163. 

Your example pilot, 154. 



\ 



Exercises in Rhetoric and English 
Composition* 

By GEORGE R. CARPENTER, 

Professor of Rhetoric and English Composition, Columbia College. 

HIGH SCHOOL COURSE. SEVENTH EDITION. 
i6mo. Cloth. Price 75 cents, net. 

ADVANCED COURSE. FOURTH EDITION. 
i2mo. Cloth. Price $1.00, net. 



" This work gives the student the very gist and germ of the art of composi- 
tion." — Public Opinion. 

" G. R. Carpenter, Professor of Rhetoric and English Composition in Colum- 
bia College, has prepared a work under the title of ' Exercises in Rhetoric and 
English Composition.' in which not so much the science of Rhetoric is mapped 
out and defined as the practical workings of the art are furnished to the student 
with just enough of the principles to guide him aright. The author gives an 
abundance of exercises for the student to study and analyze, and this is the very 
best kind of help. The scheme of the subject-matter is somewhat unique and 
novel, but it is comprehensive and lucid. . . . A very serviceable and suggestive 
book to read and consult." — Education. 

" The' text represents the substance of teaching which a freshman may fairly 
be expected to compass, and it is set forth with a clearness and directness and 
brevity so admirable as to make the volume seem almost the realization of that 
impossible short method of learning to write which has often been sought for, 
but never with a nearer approach to being found. . . . We do not hesitate to 
give unreserved commendation to this little book." — The Nation. 

" Seldom has so much good common sense been put within so brief a space." 
— The Boston Herald. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 



Studies in Structure and Style* 

BASED ON SEVEN MODERN ENGLISH ESSAYS. 

By W. T. BREWSTER, A.M., 
Tutor in Rhetoric and English in Columbia University. 

With an Introduction by G. R. Carpenter, A.B , Professor of Rhetoric and 
English Composition in Columbia University. 

Cloth. i2mo. $1.10. 

The Seven Essays referred to are : J. A. Froude's " The Defeat of the Span- 
ish Armada," R. L. Stevenson's " Personal Experience and Review," John 
Morley's " Macaulay," .Matthew Arnold's " On the Study of Celtic Literature," 
James Bryce's " The Strength of American Democracy," John Ruskin's " The 
Crown of Wild Olive," and j. H. Newman's " What is a University? " 

It is of too recent publication to have been in class-room use, but will be 
introduced at the beginning of another school year in a number of schools. 



" It is well conceived, and the selections are excellent for their purpose." — 
Prof. Felix E. Schelling, University of Pennsylvania. 

"The selections seem to be chosen with good judgment, and the notes to 
be careful and instructive." — Prof. Fred. P. Emery, Dartmouth College, 
Hanover, N.H. 

" I am even more pleased with the book than I had expected to be. ... I 
shall certainly try to introduce the book into one of my classes next fall." — 
Miss Anna H. Smith, High School, Binghamton, N.Y. 

" ' Studies in Structure and Style' is, I think, the best book of the kind that 
has yet appeared, and I shall be glad to recommend it to my classes."— Prof. 
Edwin M. Hopkins, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan. 

" I have delayed to acknowledge Brewster's ' Studies in Structure and Style,' 
which you kindly sent me, until 1 could examine it with some care. That exami- 
nation is very satisfactory. The selections are well chosen, and the comments 
both on their structure and their style are distinctly valuable. The work can 
hardly fail to be of large service." — M'iSS E. G. Willcox, Wellesley College, Mass. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 



\ 



X* 






V 










,0o- 


















-* 




































7- 






Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 



111 Thomson Park Drive 









Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



,0 o 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 433 049 3 # J 



m 




